


Puzzles

by DrummerGirl231



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Anxiety, Comfort, Comfort/Angst, Family Fluff, Gen, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-01-30 07:37:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21424591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrummerGirl231/pseuds/DrummerGirl231
Summary: Sometimes, ignorance is bliss... or at least it feels that way in hindsight. But self-discovery can pave the way for self-acceptance. After a sudden and frantic search for answers, Huey must reprocess his life through a new lens... a daunting task for anyone, let alone an eleven-year-old boy.
Comments: 89
Kudos: 165





	1. The List

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you who know anything about me, you may wonder why I titled this story "Puzzles," thinking, "Doesn't she know what the puzzle pieces mean?" I do know, I promise, and I hate the original meaning of the puzzle pieces as much as others like me. But I named it "Puzzles," anyway for different reasons I explain in Chapter 4.
> 
> This is dedicated to a number of Tumblr friends who share the same struggles I have, who long for representation that hasn't yet been confirmed, and who deserve the love and acceptance so readily offered to other groups. This goes out to everyone like me who has ever been bullied for being different in a way they couldn't identify for years, or cyberbullied for stating they want confirmed representation, which only proves how desperately needed it is. We may not all be able to speak, but one day, we will all be heard.
> 
> This was written in the hiatus between Seasons 2 and 3, and before Frank said he likes to think Violet's already taking college courses.

_Just one more assessment… one more quiz and then I can sleep._

But Huey had already told himself that three times. He hit “back,” and scrolled through the search results, looking for a link that was still blue instead of purple. When he clicked on one and started reading through the questions, he realized it was the same one he’d already taken four times.

_Come on… why is that one on almost all these pages? Where was that other one… the one that gave me a diagram at the end?_

He clicked through the purple links but couldn’t find it.

_I must have found that one when I put something different in the search bar… what’d I enter that time?_

He tried a few variations of his search and clicked through the purple links again. _Why didn’t I screencap it when I had the chance?_

“Come on… it has to be somewhere…” he muttered from under his sheet.

“Huey?” Louie sounded from two bunks below. “You still doing crazy conspiracy stuff?”

Other nights he would have been. Just two nights ago he had been. Huey stared at the tablet in his hands and wondered how on Earth he could let something like this distract him from his self-assigned mission. 

“No… go back to sleep, Louie.”

“Don’t hafta tell me twice at half past midnight,” Louie yawned. “I don’t get why we hafta tell you, though…”

Huey felt the bunkbed shift ever so slightly as Louie rolled over to go back to sleep. Lately his brothers had been feebly attempting interventions to get him to sleep at a decent hour, but how could he sleep? Someone was targeting his family, and now he had reason to believe F.O.W.L. was behind it. And on top of that, now he had this other thing to worry about. 

_“I don’t get why we hafta tell you, though…”_ Louie’s words echoed silently in Huey’s mind a few times.

_What if that’s another sign?_ His mind gets so fixated on things sometimes and he loses sight of everything else. Pertinacity… that was listed on one of the pages.

He pulled up the document he’d been working on and scrolled through the list of symptoms he’d put together… categorized, colorized, alphabetized… and there was pertinacity, written in orange letters. There were bullet points beneath it where he gave examples of his firm adherence to opinions, ideas, or goals. He was so determined to throw Scrooge a birthday party despite Scrooge not wanting one – an instance he had also included in the yellow-green section, since it was also an example of his struggle to see things from others’ perspectives. Below its inclusion in the orange section, he also gave the example of his frustration with Bubba the Caveduck for not behaving at all as he believed he should have and insisting his research on caveducks was right and the caveduck was wrong. 

He added another bullet point: “I get caught up in what I’m doing and forget to take care of myself.”

The word “remiss,” crossed his mind. He’d seen it in an acronym for what he suspected on a poster online. He wouldn’t have thought of himself as remiss before, but now that he thought about it, he was being negligent when it came to his own needs or other responsibilities. It wasn’t all the time, but when he was this focused on something, it was certainly a problem.

He added “remiss,” to the orange section and scrolled up and down the list… twelve point, Times New Roman font, single-spaced, three pages long, more colorful than a bowl of rainbow rice puff cereal. As he looked over the list, he wondered how on Earth he hadn’t suspected it sooner… how could he have memorized the entry about it in the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook and not recognized the signs in himself?

“Heh… sounds like you!” 

Dewey said that to him after he read the page out loud yesterday. 

“Don’t be ridicu… wait.” And he reached for his tablet, and that was that. That’s all it took to trigger this all-consuming, obsessive pursuit… just one comment from his brother. He wished he hadn’t read the page out loud to his brothers. He wished Violet had never mentioned it when she and Lena came over earlier that afternoon.

As anxious as he’d been over the last several weeks, he now missed only worrying about some unidentified villain targeting his family. It was a simpler time. He never would have thought he’d say that about his investigation! But the last day – almost day and a half – had been nothing but online assessments, depressing articles, educational videos, even memes and posters… and he couldn’t figure out why he was still compelled to keep searching. What was he looking for? Confirmation? Support? Or proof he _didn’t_ have it? 

And no matter how much research he did, he knew there was no way to know for sure without talking to someone who could actually diagnose him, but that would mean having to tell Uncle Donald, and Uncle Donald was never going to agree to have him professionally assessed. He could just hear his uncle’s scratchy voice in his mind: _“Huey, you’ve done this a dozen times with a dozen different things. Stay off NetMD. It’s making you a hypochondriac. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re fine.”_

But this wasn’t suspected diabetes because of a mild increase in thirst (from his own forgetting to drink enough water), or suspected appendicitis because of a simple tummy ache, or suspected cancer because that was always an option on the NetMD symptom checker. He had over three pages of symptoms… the very document itself an example of his obsessive nature, compulsive organizing habits, and love of lists. 

He added “I made this list,” to the very top of the list and saved it, then sighed and turned off his tablet. It was late. He needed to sleep. He climbed out from under his sheet and down the bunkbed ladder to charge his tablet for the night, then headed toward the bathroom. No sense in trying to sleep if he was going to wind up needing to pee in fifteen minutes.

The house was eerily still… normally it’d be “settling,” as the temperature dropped for the night, but all Huey could hear was his own breathing. He wanted to hold his breath, it was so loud… but he knew he wasn’t breathing hard at all. And it’s not like anyone had ever accused him of being a particularly loud breather. 

_Unusual sensory responses… another sign,_ he worried.

Even his steps seemed louder than normal. He wished the house would make noise… any noise at all so he wasn’t the only one making a sound.

Just then he heard his mother laugh. He jumped at first, but what a relief… the house wasn’t as quiet anymore. She must have been watching something funny online, though what she was doing awake this late, he had no idea. He took a few steps past the bathroom and turned the corner to check her bedroom door. It was shut, but her light was on. 

Another laugh of hers met him in the hallway, and he smiled before turning around and heading back to the bathroom… the first real smile he’d had in days. 

_I wish she knew…_ he found himself thinking. _She doesn’t know about my hypochondriac tendencies… she’d have no reason to doubt me..._

_…unless there is a reason to doubt me._

He began to weigh the pros and cons. 

_If I tell her, she may be able to alleviate my fears without shaming me for speculating. On the other hand, I don’t really know for sure how she’ll react… she may react like Uncle Donald would. That, or she may agree to have me assessed, which would mean I would know once and for all whether or not it’s true, and then I could get back to…_ he was going to think his life was going to go back to normal, but he realized of course it would just go back to his other investigation. But at least he wouldn’t have this distracting him anymore. _Then again, if it’s confirmed, I’ll have to process all of that… but if I never get assessed… they do say “Not knowing is the worst.”_

He continued to debate back and forth in his mind as he washed his hands, and as he dried them he realized there was no way he was going to be able to fall asleep anytime soon. He may not have been able to find an article or quiz that moved him toward a concrete answer, but he had a new option before him now.

_Okay. If I go get my tablet, turn it back on, and pull up that file, and if her light is still on when I get back down here, I’ll tell her._

So he tiptoed back into his room, grabbed his tablet, and made his way down the tower steps. He turned the tablet back on and waited for everything to load, hoping his mother would call it a night by the time he had his document loaded to show her. Once the document was ready to go, he minimized it and made his way around the corner to where her room was. 

Her light was still on. 

His heart pounded. His breathing became shallow. He shivered half from the chill of the mansion at night and half from nerves. It occurred to him he wasn’t moving anymore… not forward, not back… just standing in the hallway staring at his mother’s bedroom door.

_Come on… move… before she turns out her light._

He couldn’t help but notice the irony in wanting to reach the door before her light went off when he’d tried to stall until it did half a minute ago. He expected any second the light would go off, or his mom would come out of her room to get water or go to the bathroom or something, or Duckworth would drift down the hallway and ask him what on Earth he was doing out of bed so late. The scenarios continued in his mind. He could just imagine Duckworth or his mother asking him what he was doing, and then it’d feel as though they were demanding he tell them, rather than him choosing to explain himself freely. He’d have to explain himself or risk their suspicion for pleading the fifth. The least horrible option was just to knock on her door, but it was still six feet away, and he couldn’t move.

But then his mother laughed again… a quiet, warm laugh. All he wanted to do was run into her room and into her arms, and let that warmth melt his fears away. He’d been frozen to the rug a moment before, but he thawed just enough to take a few more steps. 

Finally he was close enough to touch the door. With a deep breath, he tucked his tablet under his arm and reached up with his other hand to knock. His fist trembled as he held it inches from the door.

_Come on… just knock… before she turns off her light,_ he urged himself. He couldn’t believe what he was about to say to his mother. 

_Maybe I don’t have to say anything,_ he realized. _Maybe all I have to do is tell her I can’t sleep, and she’ll tuck me in and let me watch whatever she’s watching for a few minutes… maybe that’ll be enough to calm me down._

It certainly seemed to be a less intimidating option. He hadn’t made up his mind to go with it, but he told himself that’s all he was going to do to give himself the courage to knock. He tapped the door with his knuckle and it echoed down the hallway so loudly – to him, anyway – he wished he could’ve shushed the sound it made. At the same time, he wondered if his mother could hear it if she was watching something with earphones in, and he began to question whether or not he should try to knock again or just give up and go to bed when he heard his mother reply.

“…Uh… come in?”

The sudden simultaneous relief and dread was only comparable to the paradox of experiencing nausea and hunger at the same time. Huey turned the doorknob and peered into his mother’s room. There she was, sitting up in bed with a tray over her lap and Uncle Donald’s laptop on the tray. 

“Huey?” She took her earphones out and placed them over the keyboard. “What are you doing up, pumpkin-noodle?”

“I uh… I couldn’t sleep.”

Della smiled sympathetically. “Well, that's relatable.” She patted her bedspread, and Huey was relieved to realize that was a nonverbal cue he understood.

_Maybe I have nothing to worry about after all,_ he thought, until he remembered the tablet under his left arm and the three page list he had made.

As he went around her bed to climb up on the unoccupied half, she moved her prosthesis on the nightstand to make room for Donald’s laptop. 

“What were you watching?” Huey asked.

“An old improv show I used to watch in college,” she said, folding up the tray and setting it on the floor. “Did you hear me laughing?”

“Yeah... can I watch it?”

“I’d rather know what you brought to show me,” she nodded at his tablet. 

_Why couldn’t I have left this in my room?_ he asked himself. “Oh… this? I don’t know why I brought this, really. Here, I’ll just…” and he placed it on the nightstand on his side of the bed.

Della cocked her eyebrow at him. “Okay… so… how come you’re having trouble sleeping? You feel okay?” she placed the back of her hand on his forehead. “No fever…” she said, moving the backs of her fingers to his cheek. 

Despite her soothing maternal touch, that feeling he’d had a minute ago in the hallway returned… that he’d lost control of the conversation… that it was no longer his decision to say what was bothering him, but something he’d _have_ to say, because now he owed an explanation.

He stared down his bill at the cream-colored blanket on top of his mom’s comforter and tried to find the words. 

“Anxious?” she guessed.

It was a safe enough question to answer… he wouldn’t be lying if he said he was, and he didn’t have to say why. 

He nodded. 

“Wanna talk about it?”

Of course he did. That’s why he was here. But now when he had the chance, he was too afraid to. What if telling her would all be for nothing because he’s perfectly normal? And what if he’s not wrong but his mother thinks he’s just being silly? What if he makes a fool of himself? What if he cries? What if she scolds him for staying up to research it when he should be sleeping?

“Not sure if you wanna talk about it yet?” Della asked. 

He realized he must have taken too long to answer… but thankfully his mother understood. He wasn’t sure how to respond to her question, though… if he nodded, would she interpret that as a _“Yeah, I’m not ready to talk about it yet,”_ or a _“Yeah, I can talk about it?”_ So he just sat there, absent-mindedly feeling the fabric of her blanket with his fingertips.

“You came for the weighted blanket, didn’t you?” she asked with a smile.

And then all at once he remembered… in doing research on ways to help his mom get better sleep because she was exhibiting symptoms of PTSD, he found weighted blankets can help people with anxiety. When he presented Uncle Scrooge with his findings, Scrooge bought her one. But Huey had read while doing his research these blankets helped other people, too… people who have what he might have… and if he got under this blanket and it helped him feel better… would that be another symptom to add to the list? He just wanted to be comforted, but now he was afraid of comfort, too. And it was past 12:30 and he should have been asleep three hours ago. His eyes began to sting. His vision grew blurry and his face scrunched up.

“Oh honey… what’s wrong?”

It was too late. He was crying. There was no escaping the subject now. He covered his eyes with his arm and shook as he tried to pull himself together. His poor mother had her own issues to deal with, and her own coping mechanisms to try to get herself to sleep, and here he was, interrupting her… inconveniencing her.

“Can I hug you?”

But she didn’t seem to mind. She wasn’t mad at him for coming to her so late at night. 

“It’s okay to say ‘no,’ if you don’t want a hug, but if you do –”

He didn’t let her finish but threw himself into her arms and wept. She wrapped one arm across his back and held the back of his head with her other. 

“Honey… my sweet boy…” she said quietly. “You’re safe, baby… you’re safe here… you’re alright.”

She kissed the side of his face and began to hum the song he’d grown up listening to Uncle Donald sing… the song he now knew she’d written for him and his brothers. He felt a little bad admitting it to himself, but it sounded so much nicer when his mother sang or hummed it.

When he wasn’t crying so hard, and when his foot began to fall asleep since he was sitting on it funny, he sat up and wiped his sleeve across his bill. 

“Sure you don’t wanna talk about it now? Even just a little?” She smoothed his hair to the side and wiped a tear from his cheek with her thumb. 

If this was what he could expect from his mother, then he had nothing to fear from her. He looked back at his tablet on the nightstand and reached for it, then took a deep breath.

“I… I was reading about something on the internet, and… I couldn’t stop reading about it and looking up everything I could.” He couldn’t look her in the eye, and he was very aware of that. “And… I don’t wanna talk to Uncle Donald about it… not yet. But I can’t sleep. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“What? What is it?”

He took another breath and reminded himself that if she doubts him, he’s got the list.

“I think I might be autistic.”

“Oh thank goodness,” Della sighed. 

His head snapped up and he looked at her with disbelief. She had one hand on her face and was slouching like all the tension had left her body, and she was smiling.

“Phew… okay. Alright.” 

“…Mom?”

She locked eyes with him for a second and must have realized how strange her reaction was.

“Sorry, it’s just… when your eleven-year-old son says he’s distressed over something he found on the internet that he couldn’t stop looking at or reading about… I mean, it’s the _internet._ It could literally be anything! Okay. But it’s just Autism. That’s fine.” But then her smile vanished. “I mean – oh gosh, that sounds like trivializing, doesn’t it? I’m so sorry. Of course this is a big deal for you! There’s a lot to process, unpacking something like that. No wonder you can’t sleep. It’s just…” she trailed off and cleared her throat, then angled herself to face him more directly and rested her face in her hand and her elbow on her knee. “Okay, so you’re thinking you have Autism. Like Asperger’s Syndrome specifically, or…?”

“Well… I guess so, but in 2013 the DSM-5 came out and since then they’re pretty much just calling Asperger’s Syndrome ‘High-Functioning Autism,’” he said.

“Ah… well, a blue rose by any other name,” she shrugged. Huey wasn’t sure what a blue rose had to do with anything, but Della didn’t elaborate. “So how come you’re thinking you’re autistic suddenly? What started all this?”

Well those were two different questions with two different answers. He could sum up why he thinks so with the list, but if she wanted to know what started this, it was best to start with Violet’s visit.

“Well… when Violet and Lena were over… we were talking about school and stuff, and how we’re homeschooled, and Violet talked about how fortunate we are to be homeschooled because she’s dealt with bullying and stuff at her school…”

“Aw…” 

“And Dewey asked her why and she said she supposes having freckles, bushy hair, two dads, and Autism makes her an easy target.”

Della made a little sound like her heart just broke for Violet. “That poor little sweet potato pie… she doesn’t deserve to be treated like that.”

He wondered where his mother got these fall food themed terms of endearment, but that wasn’t important at the moment.

“None of us knew she was autistic, but I wanted to learn more about it so I could be a better friend to her.” This made Della smile, and he went on. “And before bed I was reading the entry in the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook about it, even though I’d read that entry before, but, I wanted to refresh my memory, you know?”

“Mm-hm,” Della nodded.

“And I was reading it out loud, because I figured Dewey and Louie could learn from it, too, since we’re all Violet’s friends, and Dewey said, ‘Sounds like you!’ And at first I thought he was crazy, but…” he pulled the list up on his tablet. “I realized he was right… there _are_ things in that description that describe me. So then I started researching, and…” he passed the tablet to his mother, “I’ve compiled a three-page list of symptoms I exhibit.”

“Wow!” Della’s eyes went wide when they fell on the colorful list, and she scrolled up and down a few times just taking in the spectacle of it. "Okay well first things first, this is super impressive and gorgeous.”

_Gorgeous?_ It was a nightmare he couldn’t wake up from. “Are you even reading it?”

“Oh, sorry. Right.” She swiped upward with her index finger and glanced back at him. “Go ahead and get comfy. This could take a few minutes.”

Huey sighed and flopped down against the unused pillow. 

“Ha!” Della laughed and read the first sign aloud: “‘I made this list.’ I love it!”

“Mom…”

“Okay, okay I’m reading.”

It occurred to him he’d just handed his mother, whom he still barely knew, a lengthy list of his flaws and insecurities… insecurities that until Violet’s most recent visit, he didn’t even realize he had. He wanted his mom to like him. He already knew she loved him to the Moon and back but mothers can love their children because they’re theirs without liking them as people. What if she read through this list and was horrified to discover what a mess of a son he was? What if she didn’t like him as much as his brothers after this? He’d been staring up at the ceiling, but he needed to watch her… to try to gather any hint of how she might be responding to what she was reading… even if all the articles he read about High-Functioning Autism said he couldn’t read facial expressions or non-verbal cues. He had to try.

He turned onto his left side and looked up at her. Without even looking down at him, Della shifted so she could prop the tablet up on her one leg and scroll with her left hand while she reached over to rub the top of his double-hatted head. He tried to read her face, but he couldn’t. She looked like she was concentrating… or maybe concerned? Annoyed? Angry? 

She reached for his hand and gently wrapped it in hers as she kept reading, and he crossed the annoyed or angry options off his list. Maybe she was just concentrating and concerned. Her small displays of affection as she read through his symptoms were reassuring enough. Now he wondered if his struggle to interpret her facial expressions had more to do with the angle at which he was watching her, or his possible undiagnosed Autism. 

Finally Della set the tablet on her blanket and leaned down to kiss the side of his head. 

“Thanks for sharing this with me,” she smiled.

“…Well?” He didn’t want to be thanked, no matter how warm and fuzzy it made him feel. He wanted answers. Did she think he was right, or not?

Della took a breath. “You… _may_ be on to something here…”

He could tell she was trying to say it delicately, but it didn’t help. Everything he feared was true. He let out a whine and his heart pounded in his chest. "Oh my gosh!"

“Huey, honey, it’s okay…” 

“It’s not okay! You said I might be on to something! That means you think I might have it!”

“Why do you think that’s a bad thing?”

Huey wondered if she had really read the list or if she’d just been admiring the pretty colors. He sat up and held his tablet up for her to see again. 

“Just look! Look at everything that’s wrong with me!” his voice trembled and he turned the tablet to look at it again, himself. “I’m not good at imagination stuff! I have weird obsessive interests! I have meltdowns! I keep lists of random facts and have a compulsive need to keep my life organized! I –”

“…Have strengths and weaknesses,” Della gently took the tablet from his hands and set it aside, then cupped his face in her hands. “You’re not worse than other people… you’re not defective, okay?”

Huey wanted to believe her, but she didn’t read every article he did. She didn’t find a website made by someone whose goal was to warn others off of high-functioning autistic people. She didn’t read the statistics on autistic adults graduating college or finding employment or getting married. She didn’t just spend the last day taking quizzes where all the negative traits were associated with Autism and all the positive traits pointed to being normal. He shook his head in his mother’s hands, but she didn’t pull away from him. She tilted his face up to hers, wiped away his tears, and without telling him to look her in the eye, said, “You are wonderful, Autism or no Autism, and if you are autistic? I wouldn’t wanna trade you for any boring normal boy in the whole world, and I wouldn’t wish you were a normal version of you, either… because then you wouldn’t be you! You wouldn’t be my Huey… and I wish I knew how to make you like you as much as I like you.”

He sobbed so hard his chest ached. She was responding better than he’d ever hoped she could… but she was also leaning toward believing he was autistic. How could she be alright with this? “But… it’s… a pervasive… developmental disorder…” he managed to get out between sobs. 

“Psshh, says who?”

“Says all the experts, and –”

“You mean the neurotypical ones?”

Huey nodded.

“Yeah, well, a neurotypical ‘expert,’ told me when I was just a little older than you I had a ‘learning disability,’ but I still taught myself rocket science, so… I wouldn’t let those ‘experts,’ speak on the behalf of the autistic community, either.”

Huey only sniffled in reply.

“I saw on your list you said you lack empathy, too… neurotypical lies at work again.”

“But… last year… when it was Uncle Scrooge’s birthday… I wanted to throw him a party and when he didn’t like it I just kept trying to make him enjoy the party instead of leaving him alone. I wasn’t considerate of his feelings. I was just thinking about mine.”

“Okay, well, did you learn from that, or have you kept trying to throw him parties he doesn’t want?”

He sniffled again and traced a seam in the weighted blanket with his finger. “I learned from it.”

“See? Some psychopath with no empathy wouldn’t have. And sweetie, look at all the ways you feel for other people! When Violet said she was bullied for being autistic, you decided to study it to be a better friend to her! When your brothers are scared, you comfort them. When you knew I was having trouble sleeping, you went out of your way to research ways to help me. And by the way, I love this blanket. It’s seriously the best thing since like… Legends of Legend Quest.”

Huey thought about the comparison for a second. “Which you used to use to stay up, so… is the blanket actually helping, or…?”

“Yeah, it’s helping,” she assured him. “When you’re in your early twenties, you _wanna_ stay up. Buuuut once you start turning twenty-nine every year, like me…” she jokingly flipped her hair like some kind of vain beauty queen and Huey let out a chuckle, but then held his breath, not sure if he was supposed to laugh or not. “I heard that,” Della smirked. “You laughin’ at yo mama?” She reached under his arms and tickled him, and he collapsed into a ball on the bed, laughing. 

“Stoppit!” 

And she did. “Aw, I probably shouldn’t be getting you all riled up before bed anyway… okay. So. Here’s the plan… no wait, scratch that. We’ll plan in a second. First, d’you wanna find out for sure if you’re autistic?”

Huey thought about it for a second, then nodded. Not knowing really was the worst. 

“Okay… so then the plan is, we go to sleep, and then tomorrow, we can talk to your Uncle Donald…”

“No!” Huey curled into a ball. 

“Honey, we can’t keep him in the dark about it. He’s your legal guardian. He’s the one who raised you.”

“He won’t believe me… he’ll just tell me there’s nothing wrong with me.”

“Well, there isn’t anything wrong with you, either way. But why shouldn't he believe you?”

He couldn’t tell her he could be a hypochondriac at times… not now that she was on his side. He needed someone on his side. “He just won't,” was all he managed to say as he traced the blanket’s stitching again.

Della was silent for a moment. “Okay,” she said at last. “Well then you don’t have to tell him. I’ll go to him by myself, and say I’ve noticed some signs of Asperger’s Syndrome in you. I mean, I did already before tonight, so that wouldn’t be a lie. I just wasn’t ready to come to any conclusions before because I didn’t see enough. But I can ask him privately if you have it, and when he says you’ve never been tested, I can suggest we have you tested and list some traits you have.”

“What if he still says he doesn’t want me tested?”

“You underestimate the persistence of a mama bear who’s also a twin sister,” she grinned. “You just leave your Uncle Donald to me. I might have to tell Uncle Scrooge, too, since he’d pay for the assessment, but I don’t think I'll have any problems with him.”

Huey made a little whining noise. He didn’t see how Scrooge wouldn’t have a problem paying for an assessment like this, and he didn’t want the whole house to know about it yet... not before it was confirmed. But he supposed there really was no way to have it confirmed if certain people didn’t agree he should be tested. 

His mother gently stroked the side of his face. “It’ll be okay, baby… just leave Team Uncle to me.”

At least he wouldn’t have to witness those conversations. He glanced up at his mother for a moment and nodded against the blanket. 

“Ready to go to sleep now?” she asked. 

He nodded again. 

“Your room or here, it’s up to you,” she said. 

“Well… if I try the weighted blanket, and it is comforting, that’s one more sign you could tell Uncle Donald, since the websites said they’re also helpful for autistic people…” he reasoned. He knew weighted blankets were supposed to be calming for anyone, but he just didn’t feel like leaving his mommy at the moment.

He wondered if his mother could pick up on that, with the warm smile she gave him. 

“Okay, snuggle in,” she said. 

Huey climbed under the covers as Della clapped twice and the lights went out. The sheets were cool against his legs since no one had been on that side. The pillow was a bit warmer since he’d already rested against it. As for the weighted blanket… it really did feel like a hug. The effects were almost instantaneous… he could feel his cortisol levels decreasing and his serotonin levels increasing.

“Does the blanket feel too heavy?” Della asked once she’d snuggled in and was resting on her side. “I know it’s not a kid one.”

“It’s okay,” he said, rolling onto his stomach and facing her. “Thanks, Mom.”

“You’re welcome, my sweet, thoughtful, brilliant baby boy,” she said, stroking the side of his face again. She began to sing her lullaby to him, and as she sang, his eyelids grew heavier and heavier… his mother’s gentle touch, her soothing tones, and the weighted blanket slowly relaxing both his body and mind for the first time in weeks. 

“Face each new sun with eyes clear and true… unafraid of the unknown, because I’ll face it all with you…”

And with his mother’s promise, he sighed and sank into a dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone's curious, Della was watching the DT17 universe's equivalent of Whose Line is it Anyway, particularly the seasons in the late '90s/early 2000s. And her line "a blue rose by any other name," was a play on a classic Shakespeare line, altered to allude to another play, "The Glass Menagerie," by Tennessee Williams, which has one of the most accurate portrayals of adult Autism I've ever seen in fiction, though the word "Autism" is never spoken.
> 
> My apologies for any typos. I don't have a beta.
> 
> While puzzle pieces are a symbol typically used for Autism by Autism Speaks, which is terrible fundraising machine run by neurotypicals that vilifies Autism and seeks to eradicate it, I believe in redeeming the symbol of puzzle pieces, because they can be quite the brilliant analogy. More about that in a future chapter.
> 
> When I was twenty-two, my mother said I had four out of seven symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome that she was reading about, and that launched me into a frantic search for answers, culminating with being diagnosed with "Autism Spectrum Disorder," four months later in March 2015. I did, in fact, present a counselor with a three page, single spaced, eleven point font, categorized and color-coded list of symptoms and quirks I discovered from articles or quizzes, as well as the printed results of several quizzes, including the Autism Quotient and Empathy Quotient. And by the way, Empathy Quotient quizzes make no sense... how is it more empathetic to prefer pranks to puns? How is laughing at someone else's expense indicative of appropriate empathy? But I digress.
> 
> DuckTales 2017 has at least three characters that could very well be autistic, some better representation than others, but even though Frank Angones has confirmed representation is coming or in the works for many other groups, he's remained entirely silent on the matter of neurodiversity representation, despite the high number of neurodivergent children and adults being bullied, abused, vilified, and/or discriminated against. Perhaps I'm being impatient and they have big plans they just can't reveal yet, but surely he could at least say what he says for other groups... that he understands the need for this sort of representation and they're working on something? But he hasn't, and that makes me sad.
> 
> Earlier I'd meant to give credit to my Tumblr buddy shizu-twg and I forgot! Shame on me. So I'm fixing that now. I was having trouble pinpointing exactly what would launch Huey on this frantic search for answers. Shizu-twg suggested I have him read a page out of the JWG, and I wanted Violet to be a part of it, so figuring out what starts Huey's journey was a bit of a collab.


	2. Fears and Doubts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Huey tries to catch up on his Saturday morning chores, Della heads down to Donald's houseboat to talk to him about Huey's concerns... and soon discovers there's a reason Huey came to her first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How many of my headcanons can I fit into one fic? Let's find out, shall we?
> 
> This was written in the hiatus between Seasons 2 and 3.
> 
> This chapter will mostly be from Della's POV (though written in third person limited omniscience, except for her thoughts), but I promise we'll jump back over to Huey in the next chapter.

Huey woke up slowly and peacefully in the same position in which he’d fallen asleep. He wondered why his blankets were so heavy until he realized he wasn’t under his blankets. He’d fallen asleep in his mother’s bed under her comforter and weighted blanket. He opened his eyes and expected to see her sound asleep on her preferred side, but she was gone. Her covers were folded back where she’d climbed out of bed and her prosthesis and Donald’s laptop were gone from her nightstand. 

He pushed himself up from the mattress and gasped. _What time is it?_

He rubbed his eyes and reached for the digital clock on the nightstand nearest him, which he assumed his mother kept turned away so she wouldn’t keep looking at the clock as she tried to fall asleep.

His heart lodged in his throat when he saw it was just after nine o’clock. He should have been up no later than eight! _Why didn’t she wake me?_ he asked himself. He glanced at her side of the bed again and found his answer on a yellow piece of paper she’d left on her pillow. He picked it up and cleaned the last bits of gound from his eyes before reading:

_Hi, Sweetie! _

_I told Mrs. B. you had trouble falling asleep last night and asked if you could sleep in and she said yes. She says you have until 2:00 to finish your chores instead of noon. Not sure what time you’ll be reading this, so if you’re not sure you can finish by then, call me and I’ll come help. Just make sure you eat a good breakfast. There’s some leftover breakfast scramble in the fridge you can heat up and blueberry muffins on the counter. Love you!_

_-Mom xoxo_

Huey sighed with relief, but adrenaline still coursed through him. He turned around and snuggled back under the covers, allowing the weighted blanket to do what it was designed to do. The even pressure on his chest and the rest of his body slowly shut off his fight-or-flight response from being so behind schedule. 

Saturday mornings were for chores, and as Mrs. Beakley was the housekeeper, she was in charge of the kids’ chore loads. She ran a pretty tight ship and Huey preferred it that way. It was predictable. Sleeping in past nine was not his norm, and neither was staying up until one. 

_Eight hours of sleep… still two hours short, for my age…_ he realized. _I might have to try and take a nap today, or go to bed early tonight…_

Neither of these options sounded ideal to him. He hated breaks in routine – _Another sign,_ he thought to himself – but at least he wouldn’t get in trouble for falling behind. Once he was feeling a bit calmer, he crawled out of bed to begin his day.

Meanwhile, Della boarded Donald’s houseboat and headed to the stairs that led inside. 

_Okay, Della… you got this,_ she told herself. _All you have to do is tell Donald Huey could be neurodivergent. No big deal. Just gotta convince him to have Huey assessed. That’s all._

She descended the steps into the houseboat and glanced around. “Donald?” she called.

“In the bathroom!” he called back.

She quickened her pace but tightened her grip on the banister to stop herself when she swung around at the bottom of the stairs. She’d been about to follow the impulse to pester Donald through the door as he attempted to do his business, but she had to restrain herself. She couldn’t put him in a bad mood for fun before talking to him about something this serious. He’d never listen to her. But it wasn’t easy resisting the innate desire to be pesky to her brother. She needed to do something else. _Eating something… that’ll work._ She put Donald’s laptop on the table, helped herself to a granola bar, and sat down, bouncing her leg while Donald dropped the seat of the toilet, flushed, and began to wash his hands.

Despite it not being the best soundtrack for eating snacks, Della chewed faster so she could be ready for the conversation. Donald took his time washing his hands, but Della still had one bite of granola bar left before he finally emerged from the bathroom.

“Are you okay?” Donald asked, heading straight for her and putting his wrist against her forehead.

“…Yeah…?”

“You didn’t pound on the door constantly telling me to hurry up, or tell me to concentrate so I don’t miss the bowl, or scream ‘COME ON, DUCK! YOU GOT THIS!’ like a high school gym coach or anything! Are you sure you feel alright?”

“Donald, please. We’re adults. I think I’ve matured past that.”

“You literally did that on Wednesday,” he said as he opened a kitchen cupboard. 

He wasn’t wrong. “Yes, well… I’ve… grown up a lot since then. Listen,” she began, but Donald cut her off.

“Did you take my last granola bar?” 

She hadn’t realized when she reached into the box she was grabbing the last one, and she couldn’t hide the fact with the wrapper still in her hand and her cheek bulging. Still, she did what any considerate sister would and offered him what was left… by spitting out the half-chewed wad of chocolatey oaty goodness into her hand and holding it out to him. She hoped he’d laugh, but he recoiled in disgust instead.

“Blech! I don’t want it _now,_ you goon!” 

Della gave the ASL sign for “sorry,” with her clean hand as she returned the food to her mouth with the other. 

“I’ll buy you more today, I promise,” she said, once she’d positioned the food to where she could talk. 

Donald grumbled and pointed to his kitchen sink. “Just wash your hands.” 

Della got up and did as she was told to avoid making him angrier, though she was impressed with how well he was managing. Twenty-five-year-old Donald would have blown a gasket if she took the last of his snacks – angry quacking, jumping up and down, fists flailing wildly at nothing and nobody in particular – but despite still having a temper, he was a lot more patient with her these days. She supposed he would have had to learn some patience, raising three boys. Meanwhile, she still had to use every ounce of willpower not to pester him through the bathroom door. She wondered if she had really grown up at all, because sometimes it almost seemed her own twin was ten years her senior. 

“So what’s going on?” Donald asked, pulling a small plastic cup of applesauce from the cupboard and a spoon from a drawer before sitting at the table. 

“Well…” She paused to swallow the granola bar and got a glass down to pour herself some water. “I wanted to talk to you about something while the kids were busy with their chores.”

“What?”

Della tried to figure out how to word it as she drank some of her glass of water to stall. She had to get those extra little bits of granola out of her mouth, anyway. She gulped and cleared her throat. “I um… I’ve noticed some things about Huey,” she began, sitting opposite Donald. “Like, um… well, he’s brilliant for one thing. He knows the JWG backwards and forwards.”

Donald smiled and nodded. He looked so proud of Huey, as he should be.

“And he’s super organized, and… and really thrives with structure, and routine, and… he also seems like such an anxious little guy. He came to my room last night _after midnight_ because he couldn’t sleep.”

“Aww… what was he so anxious about?” 

This wasn’t the segue into the topic she was hoping for. For whatever reason, Huey was convinced Donald wouldn’t believe him, so she had to bring up the topic like it was something she was wondering about, not him.

“Oh, just… life. You remember what it’s like to be a preteen. The thing is… I was wondering… all factors considered… does Huey have Asperger’s Syndrome?” 

“What?” Donald sat up a little straighter.

“Asperger’s… or, I guess they’re calling it ‘High-functioning Autism’ now,” she air-quoted.

“No I know what it is, but… of course he doesn’t.”

“You had him tested, then?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“What’s there to test? He’s fine.”

For him to decide Huey was a neurotypical all on his own despite all the signs... 

_“He won’t believe me…”_ Huey’s words echoed in her mind, and her chest ached a little realizing he was right about Donald. Despite this weighing so heavily on Huey’s mind and heart, Donald brushed his concerns aside like they were nothing.

_No, it's not like that,_ Della reminded herself. _Donald doesn’t know Huey’s thinking about this… he doesn’t know how upset he is… he thinks I’m the only one thinking it._

“I didn’t ask if there was something wrong with him, ya know. I asked if he had a form of Autism.” She did her best to keep the edge out of her voice. “There’s nothing wrong with being neurodivergent.”

Donald didn’t reply right away, but stared at his cup of applesauce and stirred it pointlessly with his spoon, and Della couldn’t help but feel he was thinking, _Says the ADHD poster child who took off in a rocket on a whim._ She knew that’s what her family thought of her, and of the _Spear of Selene_ incident. But it wasn’t the time to explain herself. She wasn’t here to talk about that, and she wasn’t sure she could, or if she’d ever be able to. She needed to focus on Huey… Huey, who grew up without her after that bolt… she could still hear the loud crack and boom of it hitting her ship, and the alarms blaring as she plummeted toward the Moon…

“We can’t just diagnose kids with stuff like this, Del,” Donald said, pulling her out of her memories before she could sink into an all-consuming flashback. “We’re not professionals.”

“Exactly,” she took a breath to regain her focus. “Which is why we can’t decide he _doesn’t_ have something on our own, either. We should have him tested.”

Donald shook his head. “It’ll only upset him… telling him you think he’s autistic, taking him to a psychiatrist or something… if I’m right and the doctor says he doesn’t have it, he’ll still know his mom thought he was autistic. And if you’re right, he’ll have to deal with that, too. Either way it’ll ruin his self-esteem, and for no good reason because he’s doing just fine.”

But Donald didn’t know Huey wasn’t “just fine.” He didn’t know how anxious Huey already was about this, or that he wanted to be assessed. As much as Della had hoped to keep Huey’s speculations out of the first conversation with Donald on the topic, maybe it’d be best if she didn’t. If Donald’s issue was that it could shatter Huey’s self-esteem to find out his mom thinks he’s autistic, it might be worth explaining Huey was already suspecting it, himself. And since Huey seemed apprehensive about telling Donald, maybe it would be best if he wasn’t there when he found out.

“Well…” she let out a deep breath and pushed her bangs back off her forehead. “Okay. The thing is… we wouldn’t be randomly telling him I think he’s autistic. I mean, I’ve been wondering about it here and there since I came home and didn't say anything, but last night, he came to _me_ with the idea. That’s why he was so anxious.”

And she knew as soon as Donald rolled his eyes the discussion was far from over. “Oh boy… here we go again!” 

“What?”

Donald leaned on his elbows and shook his head slowly as he rubbed his temples. “Listen… something you should know about Huey… is he’s a complete hypochondriac! Did he tell you about the time he thought he had Leukemia just because he had some growing pains he mistook for bone pain?”

“Well… no… but –”

“Or about the time he thought he had an ulcer just because the food he ate was a little too spicy for him?”

“No, bu–”

“Or the time he thought he had the Marburg virus?”

“What the heck is that?”

“I don’t know! But he could tell you all about it!”

Della groaned and rolled her eyes. “Okay but it sounds like in all those examples, he was afraid he might have something because of one or two symptoms that were probably blown way out of proportion. But this time he’s made a _three page list,_ Donald – color-coded, by the way, and alphabetized within categories – of signs and quirks he has that aspies have. I mean the list is a symptom all by itself, and he knows it.”

“Yeah, a symptom his hypochondriac tendencies are getting worse.”

Della’s eye twitched and she started to wish she _had_ pounded on the bathroom door a few minutes ago. How could he not take her seriously? Her baby was suffering. How could he not take _him_ seriously? “But he’s got so many signs of it… the need for rules, routines, and familiarity, the fear of the unknown, the meltdowns, the high intelligence, the amazing memory, and struggle to understand other perspectives… you seriously don’t think there’s a chance he could have it?”

Donald didn’t say anything, but sighed. He seemed to be deep in thought as he ate his last spoonful of applesauce. Della tried to wait patiently for him to swallow and say whatever he was thinking. Soon her knee began to bounce under the table. _Come on, just say something…_

But he still didn’t say anything, even after swallowing. 

“Are you afraid of Huey being different?” she blurted out at last. “Like how Uncle Scrooge was afraid of me being different?”

“What?”

“It took _three different teachers_ in fifth and seventh grade and a mid-homework meltdown before he finally agreed I should be tested for ADHD. I never even knew Mrs. Furguson told him she thought I had it in a parent-teacher conference, but he told me after I was diagnosed two years later. When I asked him why he didn’t say anything or have me tested then, he said at the time he couldn’t believe the nerve of her, suggesting something could be ‘wrong,’ with me.” Della clutched her fist against the table. “But nothing was ‘wrong,’ with me. I spent years trying to prove to everyone I wasn’t impaired… that I was just as good, just as smart, just as capable of success as any other kid…”

“And you want Huey to have to go through that, too?” 

“He will either way,” she said. “It’s not a mental illness you can talk yourself into or out of... it's a different neurological blueprint. And being tested for neurodiversity doesn’t _make_ people neurodivergent. It will give him peace of mind that what he’s facing is a real thing though, and –” 

“Or it’ll hold him back, and make him feel like he shouldn’t bother trying.”

“I don’t think it will. And even if it did, he’d have us to cheer him on! I know what it’s like to be neurodivergent more than you do, and –”

“And I know Huey more than _you_ do!”

Della gasped as the words ran right through her like a javelin through flesh, and one look at Donald told her he regretted them immediately. But that only made it worse. It meant the words slipped out before he’d had a chance to consider keeping them to himself to spare her feelings, so they were the truest representation of his. 

She wanted to be the mom Huey needed… his _advocate._ He came to her for comfort about this... something capable mothers should be able to give… but Donald still didn’t see her as a capable mother. She was nothing but a reckless, brainless, baby-abandoner in his eyes. Any effort she made to be a good mom could never absolve her from her guilt… but that didn’t mean she should stop trying… especially when her baby was counting on her.

“Della… I…” 

“He still came to me last night, not you,” she said quietly. The lines in the table grew blurry as she fought the urge to blink. 

It occurred to her Donald had probably been about to apologize, but now he was silent again. Did she cross a line? Was she just as guilty as he was? She looked up from the table and tried to read his face, but had to blink to see it. As a hot tear slid over the corner of her bill, Donald’s face came into focus again. He looked no less sorry than he did before. His shoulders were hunched as though the weight of the subject was no longer just on Huey’s shoulders or hers. His eyes moved back and forth a couple times to different spots on the table and Della could tell he was really thinking about her words.

“I’m not trying to pretend I know more about being a parent than you,” she said, “or that I know Huey better when I haven’t been back for that long… but you can’t expect me not to fight for him. I’ve been fighting for him in one way or another his whole life… and last night he cried in _my_ arms, and fell asleep to _my_ singing. He said he wanted to be tested, and I promised him I’d handle talking to you and Scrooge about it. I can’t let him down again.”

At last Donald’s eyes met hers again, and she saw not anger, but worry... even fear… and he sighed again.

“I just… don’t want him to live with a label,” he said, and Della understood he was fighting for Huey’s happiness just as much as she was. 

“I know. But… even if he doesn’t have the label of Autism… people are going to label him things, just like people have always labelled me. At least when I was diagnosed, I was able to see the other labels people gave me were lies, and that was a relief.”

Donald was silent, and Della tried to mentally prepare herself for whatever other argument he could have. But when Donald did speak again, she was surprised when all he said was, “I’ll think about it.”

It was the most annoying victory she’d ever had with her brother. He’d decided the conversation was over and there was nothing more to say for now. At the same time, at least his thinking about it wasn’t a “No.” It wasn’t a yes, but it did sound like he was leaning more toward a yes than a no. Otherwise he wouldn’t need time to think about it. 

“Thank you,” she said quietly, and she tapped her fingers on the table for a few seconds. “I guess I’ll go then.” She brought her glass to the dishwasher and drank the rest before putting it in the top rack. “I wanna check on the boys and make sure they’re on track with their chores.” Really she just wanted to check on Huey, but she wondered how much Donald trusted her with him right now.

“Della,” Donald said just as she reached the stairs. 

She stopped and turned around. 

“…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

Of course Della already knew that.

“I’m sorry, too.”

“For what?”

“…Everything.” 

Forget a three-page list… it’d take her three days to list everything she was sorry for. But it wasn’t the time. She turned and headed up the stairs to the deck.

_“I wonder who I got that from.” “And I know Huey more than you do!”_

Despite her family’s apologies for the things they’d said to her, the words still hurt. She didn’t hold their words against them, but against herself. They haunted her. 

_Which means no amount of me saying I’m sorry will fix anything for them, either… even if they forgave me, the damage has still been done, and Donald doesn’t trust me._

Donald, like her, was only trying to do what was best for Huey, even if they disagreed on what that was. 

_But since he does know Huey so much better than I do… does that mean he’s right?_

She thought back to her first day home and all the mistakes she made in trying to bond with her kids. 

_Only then I didn’t have Donald to help me… am I making another huge mistake like all the ones I made my first day? Am I no better at being a mom than I was when I came home? If Donald had been home when I got back, I never would have messed things up so bad… now that he’s here, shouldn’t I listen to him?_

She’d set herself on autopilot and found she’d reached her destination – the laundry room. Only Huey wasn’t there. He had been, though. The washing machine was already running. 

“Hi, Mom.”

Della jumped hearing Huey behind her.

“Sorry,” he said. He had a mesh laundry bag full of towels, washcloths, and undershirts slung over his shoulder and went to set it down next to the washing machine. “I wanted to bring every load down now so rotating’s easier.”

Della took a breath to calm herself. “Good thinking.”

“So, um…” Huey looked to his left and right, then stepped past her to look both ways down the hall before stepping back inside. “Have you talked to Uncle Donald yet?”

And looking into his eyes as she did when he disclosed his speculations the night before, it became a lot harder to question whether or not she was doing the right thing. He was counting on her to be the parent she wished she’d had as a kid – not that Scrooge wasn’t a wonderful parent who did his best for her – but he didn’t understand what it was like inside her head. And she didn’t understand what it was like inside Huey’s head, but at least she understood that much.

“Yeah… I just got back from talking to him.”

Whatever Huey had written on his list about struggling with nonverbal communication, she could tell he sensed in her tone and by looking at her face that the conversation hadn’t gone smoothly. His brow furrowed and he clenched his teeth, bracing himself for bad news.

“It’s okay, sweetie. He said he’ll think about it. He was… a _little_ apprehensive at first…”

“He didn’t believe me,” Huey concluded.

“…but he’s coming around… I think. I mean, I’m sure. Once I talked about my experience getting diagnosed with ADHD, and how Uncle Scrooge put off having me tested, he started to warm up to the idea of having you tested.”

Huey wrung his hands nervously, and Della realized that not only did Donald know Huey better than she did, but Huey also knew Donald as a parent better than she did.

But there was no way she was going to give up fighting for her boy. She knelt down and put her hands on his shoulders. 

“It’ll be okay. Sometimes it just takes some parents a little time to wrap their heads around this sort of thing.”

“It didn’t take you any time at all.”

“Well… that’s because I know what it’s like to find out I’m wired differently. Plus, I know someone else who…” and she gasped. _Of course! How could I forget?_ “Oh my gosh… I know someone with Asperger’s! And he wasn’t diagnosed until he was an adult! If my story doesn’t convince Donald, his definitely will! HA!”

“If you know his story, doesn’t Uncle Donald?”

“As far as I know he only told me about his diagnosis and not Donald… I don’t know if he told him while I was gone, but… if he hasn’t…” she trailed off as her mind began to race, imagining Donald coming around and Huey knowing he has someone who understands what it’s like to find out about something like this. She looked Huey right in the eyes, and Huey glanced away for a moment before doing his best to maintain eye contact. “Mama’s got a secret weapon,” she told him, and she kissed his forehead and rose to her feet. “If you want I could call him and see if his story will help your uncle decide you should be tested, but I’d have to tell him about you suspecting you’re autistic. Is that okay?”

“Well… I don’t see how he’ll be able to convince Uncle Donald I should be tested otherwise… so… okay.”

“Perfect!” she gave him a gentle squeeze around his shoulders. “I’m gonna go call him. If you need any help with your chores, call me in a little bit!” 

And with that, she pulled her phone from her pocket, ran up to her room, and shut the door. She immediately noticed Huey had made her bed for her, and she clutched her phone to her chest with a soft “Aww…” _Such a good sweet little pumpkin noodle! …Wait, why am I holding my phone? …OH YEAH!_

She searched her contacts, found his name, and hit the call button. He answered before the third ring.

“Hi! It’s Della. …Pretty good, thanks. You? …Aw, good… Well, I need your help with something.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for any typos. I don't have a beta.
> 
> While puzzle pieces are a symbol typically used for Autism by Autism Speaks, which is terrible fundraising machine run by neurotypicals that vilifies Autism and seeks to eradicate it, I believe in redeeming the symbol of puzzle pieces, because they can be quite the brilliant analogy, hence the title of the story. More about that in a future chapter.
> 
> At 22, I couldn't quite work up the courage to tell my father I was on the Autism spectrum, even though my little half-brother who's growing up with him has so many signs of it, and I wanted my father and stepmom to know. My father is a narcissist who has been abusive to me in the past, though. When he asked me a question that seemed like I could segue into the topic, I tried to ease into it, starting with my sensory processing struggles. But he immediately shook his head and went, "No... no, baby girl. You see, psychologists will take any symptom and turn it into a syndrome." It was the exact same line he said when he'd asked me what courses I was taking in community college and I listed a basic psychology course I was taking to fulfill a general ed requirement. He then proceeded to lecture me on this topic he apparently knew so much about (he really didn't, the ultracrepidarian), and after that I knew better than to ever try and tell him I'm autistic.
> 
> Donald is by no means anything like my father (well, except the explosive temper, but Donald uses his to protect his kids, not hurt them). So of course Donald's reluctance to accept Huey being autistic comes from his concern over Huey's happiness, not his own. As for Della, Frank said the only thing that can stop her is crippling self-doubt, so I wanted to see what that would look like as she and Donald learn to co-parent and she struggles with her trauma and guilt.
> 
> Also, Mrs. Ferguson was my fifth grade teacher, so I thought it'd be fun to name Della's 5th grade teacher that as well, but spell it Furguson because there are dog people in this universe.


	3. Just After Bedtime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's hard enough adjusting to having two parents for the first time without them fighting in front of you - or worse, fighting over you.

_There has to be something I’m missing…_

Huey stared up at the corkboard that had once been hanging over the desk in his shared room, but was now attached to the wall behind the “Dewey Dew-Night,” backdrop with heavy-duty adhesive strips. The board itself had been full for over a week, and now the notes had begun to creep past the border and were taped to the wall. He’d been connecting the various scraps of paper with yarn – tying it around the thumbtacks for the papers _on_ the board, and taping it to the papers around it.

He squeezed the loose ball of yarn and dug his fingers into the soft fibers. 

_It’s F.O.W.L… it’s gotta be them… they must have an agent spying on us... it must be someone we know and trust…_

He was close to a breakthrough. He could feel it. Was it Beakley? No… she couldn’t be a turncoat. If it were her, Black Heron wouldn’t have attacked and kidnapped her a year ago. Was there anyone in his family or among their friends and allies not yet touched by the bizarre coincidences that had been plaguing them lately? 

_I’m so close to the answer… how could I let myself get distracted so easily? If only Violet hadn’t disclosed her Autism so soon and gotten me all… wait._

He thought back over all the weird things happening to his family and friends and realized Violet hadn’t been a victim of any accidents recently. His mind began to race. Violet was so clever. She knew a lot of languages. And who would suspect a preteen? She was the perfect spy. She must have seen his board during a previous visit. Now F.O.W.L. knew he was on to them. They had her tell him she had Autism to plant the idea in his head he had it, too. It was all to distract him. He dropped the yarn and grabbed a new index card – a purple one – and wrote “Violet?” on it.

_But… it was Dewey who suggested the description of Autism sounded like me…_

He wrote “And D?” beneath Violet’s name. _That’d be so like him… just like when he joined the sky pirates because he wanted attention. Being a secret agent would be too tempting of an opportunity to pass up…_

But then it occurred to Huey that Dewey wasn’t immune to the misfortunes plaguing Clan McDuck lately, either. 

He sighed and scribbled over the “And D?” before staring at Violet’s name. Was he losing his mind? He’d found a kindred spirit in the bookworm. And how could she be reporting their activities to F.O.W.L. when they never tell her about where they’re going or what they’ll be doing _before_ an adventure?

Just then he heard the bedroom door open and he crumpled up the index card and tossed it in the waste basket he’d dragged back there with him.

“Why don’t they just use a ‘K’ on snacks instead of a ‘U’ if it’s kosher?”

“Because it’s their way of telling the Jewish community, ‘Hey… _U_ can eat this.’”

Huey’s eye twitched at the inaccurate information Louie just gave Dewey and stepped around the backdrop. 

“The ‘U’ isn’t just a U. It’s in a circle, which is an O. The O.U. stands for Orthodox Union, which is the union that certifies a food is kosher.”

“Knew that’d get you away from your crazy board,” Louie grinned slyly. 

Using his compulsive need to correct inaccuracies to pull him away from his investigation… _maybe I should be suspecting Louie instead,_ thought.

“Anyway, it’s 8:45. You know the drill. Time to stop muttering to yourself and get ready for bed.”

“I don’t mutter to myself…” Huey said as he headed toward the dresser for his pajamas. “Wait, do I?”

“Lately, yeah,” Dewey said. “And it’s getting a little creepy. You sound like some kinda paranoid TV character.”

“What have you heard me saying?”

“Stuff like, ‘Can’t let anything else happen,’” Dewey said.

“Yeah, or ‘Where are you hiding?’”

“Or ‘The devils are in the walls.’ That one was extra creepy.”

For all his increased self-awareness lately, he couldn’t believe he’d be so careless as to mutter his findings and speculations aloud and not even realize it. If his goal was to protect his family, he’d have to do a better job at keeping their noses out of his conspiracy theories. The less they knew, the safer they’d be.

“Doin’ alright there, Hubert…?” Louie asked slowly when Huey didn’t reply.

Of course he wasn’t. His family was in danger. He was in danger. And if he was right about having Autism, then according to the internet, he was downright defective and nothing but a devastating burden on his family and society. “I’m fine,” he lied. “Everything’s fine.”

His brothers dropped the subject, and by the time they were all changing into their pajamas, Dewey and Louie were debating as to whether opening a snow cone stand in the snow was brilliant, or stupid.

“You’d make extra profit because the snow would be free!” was Dewey’s position on the subject.

But Louie was a bit more business savvy than that. “Ice is always cheap or free. You’d still have to buy the syrup, and newsflash: no one wants snow cones in the snow.”

“I would.”

“Not as much as you’d want hot chocolate.”

It wasn’t nearly cold enough for snow, so Huey wasn’t sure what the point of the debate was, but at least they weren’t talking about him anymore. He finished changing just as Louie was working on the last couple buttons of his night shirt and Dewey was zipping up his footie pajamas, and when he opened the door to head to the bathroom to brush his teeth, he was surprised to see his mother and uncle just reaching the top of the tower steps.

“Huey! There you are. We were just coming to talk to you,” Donald said.

“Wait, why?” Dewey asked nosily as he followed Huey out into the passage.

“Oh he’s in big trouble,” Della said.

Louie had reached the doorway as well by this point and he and Dewey harmonized an “Oooooooooooh!” before Della said, “Not really.”

Huey figured it must’ve been a joke, but something about both of them wanting to talk to him at the same time made his chest feel tight and his stomach feel wiggly anyway. He could tell what this conversation was going to be, and he wasn’t ready for it. He’d hoped it wouldn’t happen until after his mom’s autistic friend came over and talked to Donald about his experiences. Any testimony, any argument, any evidence, anything that could act as a buffer between him and his uncle until he came around to the idea, would make talking to him about it that much easier. But now there wasn’t time for any more buffers.

“Have you brushed your teeth yet?” Donald asked. 

“Not yet. Just about to.”

“Go ahead. We’ll be waiting here to tuck you two in,” he glanced at Louie and Dewey, “but we wanted to talk to you in your mom’s room, just for a little bit.”

“Oh and don’t let me forget the list,” Della said.

“List of what?” Dewey asked.

“A list of cabbage varieties,” Della answered.

“Buh?”

“Not really.”

“Go on, boys. Brush and flush.” Donald stepped to the side and gestured down the spiral staircase and Huey and his brothers filed past him. 

“What was that about?” Dewey asked Huey when they reached the bottom of the staircase, but Huey didn’t want to answer. It was bad enough he was about to endure Uncle Donald telling him he was being a hypochondriac again. He didn’t need his brothers rolling their eyes, too. Still, he’d have to tell them eventually if he did find out for sure.

“Probably nothing, but I’ll tell you later if it’s not,” he answered Dewey.

“Ooh, a mystery. Maybe you should make your own conspiracy board,” Louie elbowed Dewey’s arm.

They didn’t keep pestering him about it as they got ready for bed – in part because of how hard it is to ask questions while brushing, rinsing, and flossing – and soon they were heading back up to their bedroom. When they arrived, their mother and uncle were waiting for them, as promised. 

The only thing stranger to Huey than having two parents to tuck him in was watching those two parents tuck his brothers in while he stood off to the side with his tablet, waiting to be escorted out and interrogated. He lightly drummed his fingers on the edges of his tablet while his mom tucked in Dewey and Uncle Donald tucked in Louie, and after the hugs, kisses, and I-love-yous, they switched kids.

“So why’s Huey get to stay up late?” Dewey asked Donald. 

“He’s not staying up late,” Donald said. “We just need to talk to him about something.”

“After nine?” Louie asked.

“Well it’s not like you boys fall asleep right at nine pm every night,” Della pointed out before kissing his forehead. “Love you, sweetie. See you in the morning.” 

His brothers were not letting it go, and Huey wondered if they were going to keep bringing it up. Would they wait up for him until he got back to the room and ask about it? If he crashed in his mom’s room for the night again, would they ask at breakfast? Would they continuously pester him for the next several weeks or however long it would take before he finally got a diagnosis, if he got one? It was hard enough keeping his investigation relatively secret from his brothers. The corkboard wasn’t exactly secret. They could see it any time. Knowing them, it wouldn’t take much snooping for them to find out about this, too. 

Various scenarios of them finding out in less-than-ideal ways kept playing and replaying across his mind until at last his mom and uncle were ushering him out of the room while wishing his brothers sweet dreams. He went along with them on autopilot, his anxiety ever rising with every step he descended. He wanted to bolt, but couldn’t. He just kept walking like a longtime death row inmate to the electric chair. The moment he’d dreaded was at hand. There were guards to his right and left and nowhere to run.

When they reached the bottom steps and turned the corner, one of the guards put their arm around his shoulders and he jumped, suddenly brought out of his dark daydreams.

“Sorry, did that startle you?” Della asked, pulling her arm back.

It had, but he mumbled an unconvincing “I’m fine,” just as they were reaching her room. As was his new habit, he tried to process what had just happened through the lens of possible Autism. Did he jump when she touched him because so many autistic people hate being touched? Is that why they hate being touched? Because it startles them out of their thoughts? But that happens to normal people sometimes, too, doesn’t it? And don’t autistic people hate being touched because sensory-wise it’s unbearable? But he liked hugs… did that mean he wasn’t autistic, or just high-functioning?

By the time these thoughts had run their course, he was already climbing onto his mom’s bed and taking the spot he’d had last night while Della sat where she normally slept, and Donald sat facing them, forming a triangle. Huey wanted nothing more than to snuggle under the weighted blanket and disappear, but made due curling his knees up to his chest. 

“I’m really proud of you for getting your chores and most of your homework done today,” Donald said. “How much do you have left?”

“Just history. I can do it tomorrow.”

Della chuckled. “Doing history tomorrow… sounds like some kind of time pun.” 

He knew what they were doing… trying to calm him down so he’d drop his guard… that, or they genuinely cared about his emotional and mental wellbeing and wanted to soothe him for his own good. He wasn’t sure. And he supposed not being sure was a sign of Autism because it meant he struggled with nonverbal communication and interpreting what’s meant by what’s said.

“So… why are we talking after bedtime instead of before?” he asked, now wondering if a small part of his anxiety had to do with autistic people not doing well with changes in routine. 

“Because you and your brothers always want to talk about what’s going on in your lives right as I tell you it’s bedtime,” Donald explained.

He wasn’t wrong. Nothing made them pour out their hearts like being tucked in and having the light turned off while their uncle wished them goodnight. There was always that, _if-I-don’t-tell-him-now-I’ll-never-get-to_ feeling that came with bedtime that never seemed to come around the dinner table. Bedtime was the last chance to get everything out they needed to say. Also, it was a great way to put off having to sleep, though that was more Dewey or Louie’s motivation than his. As the oldest, most mature and responsible brother, he was above such ulterior motives.

“So your mom tells me you’ve been doing some research on Autism.”

Huey tightened his grip around his legs, every muscle tensing up. They’d arrived at the subject and there was no getting out of it now. He couldn’t decide if he should simply nod and then listen to Donald go “…because you think you have it, but I don’t think you do because you always do this and…” blah blah blah, or if he should try to stop that before it starts by talking about all his research and showing him the list and talking incessantly so he can’t get a word in edge-wise which he read was yet another symptom and then he could point that out to his uncle, too. Maybe with enough filibustering he could get his uncle to agree to have him tested if only it would make him be quiet and go to sleep.

Just one problem… he didn’t seem to be able to speak or gesture. His eyes were fixed on one line of stitching in his mother’s blanket but he barely perceived it. It was like his brain decided all senses but hearing were less important as he anxiously awaited his uncle’s next words.

“…And she says you’ve made a pretty long list of symptoms you have,” Donald went on.

Huey wanted to nod, but he was frozen.

“Do you have the list pulled up on your tablet, honey?” Della asked.

He nodded. _Strange… maybe I was able to nod for her because she’s less intimidating,_ he speculated.

He unbent his knees a bit and pulled his tablet away from his chest. He tapped the center button, put in his numeric password, and there was the list. He scrolled up and down a bit, taking in the spectacle of it, trying to imagine the worst-case scenario for his uncle’s reaction just to prepare himself, and then trying to imagine some moderate ones, and then, to give him some courage to hand the tablet over, an ideal reaction.

_A list like this can only help my case, not hurt it,_ he told himself as he held the tablet out to his uncle.

Donald took the tablet gently and Huey watched his face. As expected, his eyes flew open when he saw the three-page color-coded list.

“Wow!” He scrolled up and down a bit, as well. “How long did this take?”

“I worked on it off and on for a day.” _Thank goodness I can talk again… maybe I’ll be able to filibuster after all._

Donald looked up at him with disbelief for a moment, but then returned his gaze to the screen and started reading. Huey expected him to stop partway through and say, “You do not,” or “Normal people do that, too,” or something along those lines, but he didn’t. He wondered if his mom might’ve told Donald ahead of time to read the list in its entirety before saying anything.

Finally Donald put the tablet on the blanket, and after a few more moments, looked up at Huey.

“So… how does this list make you feel?” he asked.

It wasn’t what Huey thought he’d say. And now that he had the chance to think about it… he didn’t know how he felt. He thought back to how he was crying in his mom’s bed about it the night before, and realized he felt absolutely terrible about it. But he didn’t want to tell his uncle that for fear he’d say he should just delete the list and stop dwelling on his faults.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “I feel like…” how could he be honest without saying too much? “I feel like a lot of the things I’ve wondered about – about me – are becoming clearer… like, why am I more intensely interested in my interests than people are in theirs? Why am I interested in things no one else is interested in, like dendrochronology, or cartography, or other relatively obscure sciences? It feels like other people have sort of a hive mind where they all share common interests or opinions they don’t think about that much but if they talk about them, suddenly they’re all best friends. I talk about what I like or what I think, and it’s weird.

“Well that doesn’t mean…”

_No._

“Uncle Donald, I’ve never been closer to an answer before for why I’m like this! It makes so much sense!”

“But why do you want a label that makes you feel bad about yourself?” 

“Because –” but he stopped short. To hear it put like that… why did he want to know? He was happier before he suspected it… blissfully unaware… he wished he could feel like that again. He wondered if he ever could. A diagnosis wouldn’t help him go back. But ignoring the possibility wouldn’t, either.

“…Because when you don’t know the cause of what makes you different, you feel you always have to strive to fit in,” Della explained, “…that it’s all your fault, and you should know better, and if you just try harder then one day you’ll fit in… but you’re trying your hardest already, and it starts to feel pretty hopeless after a while…”

_How’d she do that?_ Huey wondered. He had no idea how to explain the feelings he was experiencing for the first time, but here was someone who so perfectly brought clarity to his thoughts and feelings and she didn’t even know what it was like to be in his head!

“…but finding out that what makes you different has a name? It gives you permission to forgive yourself for not being like everyone else. And it helps other people understand you’re trying your best already, so they have more grace for you, too… and as far as trying your best goes, it gives you a little more direction… makes it clearer what you need to work on and how to work on those things.”

Huey stared at his mother with his mouth open. She made getting diagnosed with Autism sound like a good thing… something that would give him hope and direction in life. The websites he’d visited made it sound like a devastating disorder, but this… this made it sound okay. Thank goodness he had her there on his side.

He turned to his uncle, and with nothing to add to his mother’s words, said “What Mom said.”

But something about the look Donald gave his mom… a look Huey could only describe as an “Oh come ON,” look, made him wish he hadn’t voiced his agreement, because Donald didn’t make that face at her while she spoke… only after he agreed.

“Well now you’re just putting words in his mouth,” Donald said.

_Oh geez it’s bad everything’s bad why’d I say anything_ Huey panicked internally.

“Ex_cuse_ me?” Della said. “It’s not like I went up to him and said, ‘Hi son I recently met! Are you autistic? You seem autistic. Help me convince your uncle to have you tested!’ He came to me with the idea, remember? I’m just here as… a neurodivergent voice of experience!”

Huey wanted to say, “Yeah!” but stopped himself. Agreeing with her out loud seemed to prove… unhelpful.

“You don’t have Autism,” Donald pointed out. 

“No, but Autism and ADHD are like… brain cousins.”

“That’s not a thing!”

“It is too a thing!”

“No it’s not! And I told you, Huey does this kind of thing all the time!”

“Oh really? How many other three page color-coded categorized lists has he made of symptoms for other conditions?”

“It doesn’t matter whether he types the symptoms out or not, the point is…”

As they continued to go back and forth, a dull ache started at the edges of Huey’s abdomen and quickly spread to the middle and grew in intensity until the ache was no longer dull. He wrapped his arms around his middle and brought his knees back up to curl into the fetal position, hoping the pressure from his limbs would keep the pain from growing worse. It grew worse anyway. 

“What would be the point of a diagnosis anyway? It’s not like he goes to public school and needs his teachers to know. He’s homeschooled, and he’s getting straight A’s. He doesn’t need any extra help.”

“Oh sure, because as long as kids are getting perfect grades they’re perfectly fine! It’s not like a kid with straight A’s could possibly be struggling with anything else!”

He wished they’d stop… their fighting was making the pain worse, and the air in the room became sort of thick and wavy, like how air would look in a funhouse mirror if air were visible, though nothing in the room looked distorted in that way. His parents’ voices seemed extremely loud – even though they weren’t yelling – and yet at the same time, they sounded far away… like their voices were loud and quiet, sharp and smooth, clear and muddled, all at the same time. And all the while the pain grew worse, and then there were gurgles, and the pain moved downward, and with adrenaline’s help he crawled between his mom and uncle, hopped off the bed, threw open the door, and bolted around the corner to the bathroom. 

He registered his parents calling after him instead of arguing – “Huey? Sweetie, are you okay?” “Huey, wait! Come back!” – and he felt rude not responding and just shutting the bathroom door, but what else could he do? He pulled the wicker hamper in front of the toilet so he could lean on it and then hopped up on the seat. 

“Huey? Are you okay?” Donald asked through the door. 

Huey already had his forehead pressed against his arms across the top of the hamper, but he rolled his head to the side to face the door. “I’m fine… just a stomach ache,” he said, but his voice betrayed how miserable he felt. “I’ll be back in a little bit.”

“Are you gonna be sick?” Della asked.

“I’m fine,” he moaned. “Please just don’t wait right outside the door…” 

He didn’t hear anything for a moment, then his uncle said, “We’ll be just around the corner, so yell if you need anything.”

But he didn’t need to yell for anything. He just needed them not to yell. 

By the time he left the bathroom, he still had a bit of an after-ache from being sick and his insides slowly settling. He wasn’t at all surprised to find his uncle helping his mom up as though they’d just been sitting against the wall, waiting until he opened the bathroom door. 

“Honey? Are you feeling better?” his mom asked. 

“A little.” 

Donald put his wrist against Huey’s forehead. “No fever… did you eat something peculiar?” he asked as he led him back to his mom’s room. “Or lick something that wasn’t food again?”

Huey shook his head just as the three of them reached the room.

“We were upsetting you, weren’t we?”

He didn’t want to blame them for his getting sick… how would that help? But he also didn’t want them to fight about him anymore.

“Is it normal for parents to fight like this?” he asked as he climbed back up on the bed. All he wanted was to know his problems weren’t going to drive his family apart – that he wasn’t going to get used to the two-parent thing eventually just to lose it again.

His parents glanced at each other, and whatever the websites said, he could definitely tell by the looks on their faces they were heartbroken a little, and sorry for what they put him through. 

“We don’t know,” Della answered as they sat on each side of him, and Huey remembered he and his brothers weren’t the only ones who spent the majority of their childhood with a single uncle. “But we’re not gonna fight about this in front of you anymore, okay? And even when we’re not in front of you, we’re just gonna discuss it rationally, like two adults and –” she cut herself off with a sudden gasp that made Huey and Donald jump. “I forgot to get your granola bars today!”

Donald sighed with a groan. “It’s fine, just forget it.”

“I did! I did forget it! I shouldn’t forget it again! I promised!”

“The point is,” Donald said, directing his attention back to Huey, “Your mom and I are gonna disagree sometimes, but we’ll always work it out, because we love you boys to the Moon and back. We both want to do what’s best for you.”

Huey smiled as the last remnants of his tummy ache melted away.

Then Donald glanced up at his mom. “…Which brings me to the second thing we wanted to talk to you about…”

_Oh geez, what now?_ Huey’s anxiety began to rise again.

“We know you were up really late last night, looking all this stuff up… so… your mom had an idea.”

“What are you doing throwing me under the bus? Especially when it was your idea!”

“What?! No it wasn’t!”

“Don’t argue with me Donald; the stress is bad for the baby, remember?” Della cupped Huey’s face from behind and tilted it up slightly so Donald could look right into the “baby’s” eyes.

“Pease jush te’o me whaddit ish,” Huey said with his mother’s hands still smooshing his cheeks.

Donald sighed again. “We’re going to start taking away phones and tablets right at bedtime.”

“WHAT?!”

“You’re not grounded,” Della quickly added. “This is a life skill building thing, not a punishment thing. We totally get why you got sucked into looking up all this Autism stuff last night. You were anxious, and looking for answers…”

“…but even with that anxiety, you still would’ve been asleep a lot earlier than one o’clock if you didn’t have your tablet,” Donald said.

“But… but Mom stays up late on the computer!”

“This isn’t about her, it’s about you.”

“No no, he has a point,” Della said. “You’re right, Huey. I was using funny videos to try and calm myself down so I could sleep, but I watch so many I put off trying to sleep longer than I should. So I’m gonna lead by example and not go on the computer after my bedtime anymore, Woodchuck’s honor,” she said with one hand on her heart and the other in the air.

Huey brought his feet up to the bed, crossed his arms over his knees, and rested his chin on them. “Well… misery does love company.”

“And we’ll be less miserable the better we sleep,” Della reminded him with a hug around his shoulders.

“Speaking of, it’s time to say goodnight. Turn off your tablet,” Donald said.

Huey sighed and did what he was told and handed the tablet to his uncle. 

“Thank you. Now come on, off to bed,” Donald put his hand on Huey’s back to nudge him off his mother’s bed, but he didn’t move.

“Well I was thinking,” Huey said, once again tracing the stitching of the weighted blanket, “Mom’s blanket really helped me sleep last night, so I was wondering if… maybe I could stay here?”

Donald shrugged. “It’s up to your mom.”

“Of course you can sleep here,” Della said, hugging him around the shoulders again. 

“Maybe we should talk to Uncle Scrooge about getting you your own weighted blanket,” Donald said.

Della made a little whining noise at this.

“Well he can’t sleep in here forever. Soon he’s gonna be too old for that.”

“He’ll be too old for it when he feels he’s too old for it and not a second sooner,” Della declared. “‘Til then I’m gonna snuggle my babies as much as they let me.”

Donald smiled at the two of them. “Fine… but if weighted blankets help him, he should still have his own that’s a better weight for him.”

“This one’s fine,” Huey said, crawling to the other side of the bed and under the covers. 

His uncle came around the other side of the bed to kiss his forehead and tuck him in, and his mom kissed his cheek. After the goodnights and I-love-yous, Donald left and Della grabbed her pajamas to go change in the bathroom and get ready for bed, flicking off the light as she opened the door. 

“Hey, Mom?” Huey asked just before she shut the door behind herself on the way out. 

“Yeah, sweetie?”

“Even after seeing my list he still doesn’t want to get me diagnosed… will having your friend over really help?”

Della sighed. “We’ll find out. If it doesn’t, I’ll think of something.”

“Because ‘nothing can stop Della Duck,’ huh?” he yawned.

“That’s right, baby boy.” She blew a kiss at him. “Love you. I’ll be back in a little bit, okay? Try to get to sleep,” and she slowly shut the door, the stream of light from the hallway growing narrower and narrower until at last it was gone.

The following afternoon, Donald helped Dewey finish what was left of his math homework before returning to his houseboat. He’d checked on Huey to see how history was coming along, but he’d finished it just after breakfast. He didn’t see how getting him tested for anything was necessary. Diagnosing a child with something should only be done when the child can’t do what they’re supposed to do, right? Della struggled so much in school when they were younger. She was bright, but with her mind going in a million directions, late homework was a frequent issue, and she’d been threatened with being held back a few times. _That_ was the sort of case, Donald thought, where a diagnosis could actually help a child. Huey was on top of things, though. He had good grades, a social life, and hobbies. He had a bright future. Why give him a label he may use as an excuse? Della might have wound up held back if she’d never gotten a diagnosis and the right help, but for Huey? The diagnosis itself would hold him back. 

As he approached the steps leading down into his houseboat, he heard his sister talking and he grumbled in his mind. _Ugh, if she’s using my kitchen table to send messages to her Moon friends again…_

But then he heard another voice… a man’s voice, and a very familiar one, at that. 

_Oh, no…_

Quickening his pace, he tripped on the second to last step and landed with an “OOF!” on the floor.

“Oh, hi Donald! You okay?”

He peeled himself off the floor and wrapped one arm around his aching ribs, then looked up at his table and saw exactly who he’d suspected. 

“Fethry?! What are _you_ doing here?!”

“Drinking a milkshake,” he said simply. “…Or eating?” he turned to Della. “Eating? Drinking?”

“I think if you can use a straw it’s drinking but if you have to use a spoon it’s eating,” Della said.

“Oh. Yup, I’m drinking a milkshake!” He and Della both were, and there was a third to-go cup sitting on the table that he picked up and held out. “Want one?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FETHRY IN DA HOUSE(boat)!!! And he brought everyone milkshakes! 
> 
> I meant to have him in the chapter a lot more, but the chapter wound up being 11.5 pages in Word when I try to stick to about ten, sooo... next chapter for sure.
> 
> Apologies for any typos (I don't have a beta). Sometimes I revisit my own fics so I'll fix 'em as I find 'em.
> 
> While puzzle pieces are a symbol typically used for Autism by Autism Speaks, which is terrible fundraising machine run by neurotypicals that vilifies Autism and seeks to eradicate it, I believe in redeeming the symbol of puzzle pieces, because they can be quite the brilliant analogy, hence the title of the story. More about that in a future chapter.
> 
> Anyway, this chapter. I realize it's the third chapter out of three I've written in a character's trip to the bathroom, and now I'm torn between making it a running joke, or trying to avoid it at all costs in the future because it's not that funny. I'm thinking I'm gonna try to avoid it. XD As for Huey dragging the hamper in front of the toilet to lean on, that's something I used to do when I was his age and a little younger to self-soothe when my stomach aches got really bad. The hamper was a good mom substitute when I started wanting a little more independence. I wonder if other autistic kiddos leaned forward on hampers, too? The pain was so bad for me I pretty much had to be doubled-over.
> 
> On a less bathroomy note, I wanted to show a little more about what goes on in a person's head when they suspect they have Autism (viewing everything they can and can't do, say, or think through a new lens of is-this-a-symptom), and what sensory overload can feel like (everything feeling wavy and distorted without actually looking distorted, and everything being loud but sounding far away). 
> 
> I also wanted to show Della as more than happy to co-sleep with her old-enough-but-not-too-old babies. She missed out on so many years of cuddles, she's gonna let the kids sleep in her bed as often as they want. I headcanon that when she was a preteen, she asked to sleep in Scrooge's bed one night, and the old Victorian told her she couldn't anymore because she was getting too old for that. It probably hurt her feelings, and made her feel foolish and confused as to what exactly made her too old to sleep in her parent's bed when she was sick or scared. So I think that's why Della would leave it entirely up to her boys when they want to sleep in her bed and when they want to stop. They'll know when they're too old.


	4. Perspective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donald wrestles with his perception of Autism when Della invites someone over to his houseboat.

Since their reunion, Della had become a frequent visitor on Donald’s houseboat. For the most part, he didn’t mind. He was even glad of it. Sometimes he still wondered if it was real… if his sister was really alive… but then she’d descend the steps into the hull, every step sounding different than the one just before and just after it, and it would reassure him it was no dream. He finally had his sister back. He didn’t even mind that much when she pounded on his bathroom door with the intent to annoy him, or when she ate his snacks (that their uncle paid for, anyway), or when she asked him endless questions about the boys’ early years and he had to conceal they weren’t spent at the mansion with Scrooge. She was home, and he wouldn’t trade that for all the peace, quiet, and granola bars in the world.

All the same… it was still his houseboat. He could put up with all the sister shenanigans in the world, but there needed to be boundaries… particularly, not inviting other people over to his home without his knowledge… however closely related the guests were. 

But there she was, sipping milkshakes with cousin Fethry at his table.

And it didn’t matter they had a milkshake for him, too, or that a milkshake sounded great at the moment. This was his houseboat, and she didn’t get to invite guests over to it without talking to him first. Simple as that.

Only she had. And it seemed rude to throw someone out who’d brought him a milkshake. So, he reluctantly took it with a mumbled “Thanks.”

It was cookies ‘n’ cream, his favorite when he was younger. It might not have been his current favorite flavor, but he never stopped liking cookies ‘n’ cream. Della’s was mint chocolate chip, which was always her favorite. Their kid cousin may have his faults, but forgetting obscure details like people’s favorite fill-in-the-blank was not one of them.

“So… what’s the occasion?” Donald asked slowly. Della scooted to the back of the table and Donald took the hint to sit down across from Fethry. 

“Oh. Well, I wanted a vanilla milkshake because I hadn’t had one in a while, so I decided to stop for one on the way over. And then I thought, when was the last time Della had a milkshake? Has she had one since coming home? And then I wasn’t about to get us milkshakes without bringing you one, too. That’s just rude. So –”

“No, I mean why were you on your way over here in the first place?”

“Because I told Della yesterday I could make it.”

Well this was getting him nowhere. He turned to Della next, who was taking a long sip of her milkshake. She gulped and gripped her head.

“Ow.”

“Press your tongue to the roof of your mouth. It helps get rid of brain freeze faster,” Fethry advised her.

Great. While Della was doing that she wouldn’t be able to answer any questions. He wanted to ask if holding his tongue to the roof of his mouth would also help get rid of cousins faster, but instead, he took a deep breath and tried not to squeeze his to-go cup too hard.

“Fethry… when Della invited you over yesterday… what was the reason?”

“Oh! She thought it might be a good time for me to disclose my Autism, since Huey’s been wondering if he’s autistic, too.”

“Wait, what?!” He rounded on Della again. “You told _him_ about Huey?!” To start blabbing their own private business about their kid to other people… 

But it didn’t take him more than half a second to register the other shocking bit of news. “…Wait, what?!” and he turned back to Fethry. “You’re… since when did you have… wait, _what?!”_

“Wow… it’s a good thing brain farts don’t smell, or we’d have to open a window,” Della said.

“How can you be autistic?!” Donald asked, ignoring his sister’s comment.

“Um… like this I guess?” he scratched the side of his head through his hat. “I mean, I’ve been the way I am as long as I can remember and I’m pretty good at being me, so…”

“No, but… how?!” He’d known Fethry since he was a baby – though he didn’t remember much from that far back, having only been two at the time – and not once in their childhood did he ever suspect his cousin was autistic. All he knew about autistic kids when he was a kid were they were mostly boys either too thin or too chubby with curly hair and a vacant expression who would rock themselves back and forth, moan, never speak, and throw tantrums several times a day inappropriate for their age. That’s what all the autistic kids on the news looked like, and it was a far cry from his wide-eyed and talkative cousin.

Then again, he’d learned of “Asperger’s Syndrome,” later on, and… that did sound a _little_ more like Fethry. But how could his cousin be secretly autistic? The guy never kept secrets about himself! …as far as Donald could tell.

“When did you find out?”

“Oh, about fifteen years ago.”

_Fifteen years…_ the chatterbox kept it a secret for fifteen years… only, obviously it wasn’t a _complete_ secret.

“And when did you find out?” he asked Della next.

“‘Bout fifteen years ago.”

“What?!” he looked back and forth between the two of them. “You told her and not me? Why?”

“I did tell you!”

“When?!”

“Just now! …Is he okay?” he whispered loudly to Della. “Is he still having memory issues from that concussion?”

Donald slapped his forehead so hard it actually hurt.

“Ooh, careful, bro. Don’t wanna give yourself another one,” Della said.

“Why didn’t you tell me back when you found out?” 

“Well… I wasn’t exactly ready to shout it to the world… I felt kinda… _less_ because of it. Know what I mean? It was like the world was too much and I wasn’t enough for it. But I remembered how Della found out she had ADHD when you were in seventh grade, and… I really needed to process it with _someone,_ so… I called her.”

“Told ya ADHD and Autism were brain cousins,” she grinned at Donald while holding a fist out for Fethry to pound, and they both made little explosion noises once their fists had bumped.

_How was I supposed to know that was a hint?_ Donald wondered.

“Della said how you’re worried Huey might think less of himself if he gets diagnosed, too.”

“He already _is_ thinking less of himself. And it sounds like you think less of yourself for it, so I’m not wrong to be worried about him.” Whatever Della might have intended, Fethry didn’t seem to be helping her case, but his.

“I _used_ to think less of myself,” Fethry said. “But after a little while, and after talking a lot with Della… I realized that being autistic didn’t make me bad. People didn’t tease me growing up because I needed to change. They teased me because they just didn’t understand me. I didn’t understand myself, either. But now that I know, I feel good about myself. I mean, I can always work on being a better person, just like everyone else, but that better person just has to be a better version of who I already am. I don’t have to try to be normal anymore, and that’s a relief.”

His story sounded so much like Della’s, he began to suspect she called him up to recruit him and gave him a script to follow.

Then again… that wouldn’t be like Della. She had played a lot of elaborate practical jokes on him in the past, but this was serious, and it was all for her son… her son who, now that Donald thought about it, shared a lot of commonalities with their quirky cousin. Had Donald not read Huey’s list the night before, he might not have believed Fethry at all, but the signs were certainly there… and it explained a _lot_… so much of that list could be copied and pasted into one about Fethry.

It was getting more and more difficult to deny the possibility, but… if Huey had it… then what? 

“I just… I don’t know,” he said. “Huey’s only eleven. You remember what it was like to be eleven… would you have wanted to find this out about yourself at his age?”

“Hm… I kinda wonder about that, sometimes,” Fethry said. “It might have been hard finding out in the ‘90s instead of now… I coulda been put through abusive ‘therapy’ programs… also I went to public school instead of being homeschooled like Huey… I wonder if the other kids would have picked on me _less_ if they knew I had it, or more?”

“There’d definitely be a lot of differences between if you’d found out at eleven versus Huey finding out now,” Della agreed. “Another difference is he has a big cousin who knows what he’s going through.” Fethry smiled at this and Della turned to Donald. “And he has us to love and support him.”

That was all well and good, but…

“But how would we support him through a disorder like this?”

“Mm… I dunno if I’d call it a ‘disorder,’” Fethry said. “It’s more like a different type of brain.”

Well Fethry could call it whatever he wanted, but the fact remained it was classified as a disorder, and Huey was going to have a hard time if he was diagnosed. Donald got up to grab his laptop off the kitchen counter where it was charging. 

“Look, last night, I was looking up some things about Autism, and… if Huey has it, and he knows he has it, it could really hold him back in life.” Without even looking, he could sense Della’s eyes roll, but he ignored his twinstinct. It didn’t take long to pull up the first webpage; he still had the tab open. He’d been planning to angle the computer toward his sister and cousin, but as soon as he sat down, Della scooted next to him and Fethry got up to look over his shoulder. He tried to ignore his annoyance at being boxed in as he continued, “I found an article on this site, and it said –”

“AHH! EVIL!” 

Before Donald could even question his outburst, Fethry had shut the laptop on Donald’s hands.

“Ow! Hey, what’s the big idea?”

“Sorry… are your hands okay?”

“Forget my hands, what about my laptop?” He opened it back up and examined the screen, which he was surprised to see didn’t look damaged. But while he looked over the screen for any discoloration, Fethry reached down and exited out of the tab he’d pulled up.

“Hey!”

“Well they’re evil!”

“Who’s evil?” Della asked.

“Autism’s Voice! They’re not my voice… they don’t speak for any of us.”

“What are you talking about? They’re all about raising Autism awareness!” Donald said.

“More like raising funds,” Fethry said. “And the stuff they say about us is all wrong! They make us sound like we’re all defective and useless and our brain type has to be ‘cured!’” A sudden realization must have come to him, because he gasped. “No wonder you’re so worried about Huey! You’ve been reading all the wrong things.” He set his milkshake on the table and wiped his hand on his coat to dry the condensation from the cup before picking up Donald’s laptop.

“Hey! Be careful with that!”

But he was. He plugged it back in to charge on the kitchen counter and returned to his seat. 

“The best source to learn about Autism is autistic people,” he said. “We know what we’re like and what we can do! Well, we underestimate ourselves sometimes… but neurotypicals underestimate themselves sometimes, too, don’t they? But we’re a lot better at knowing our limits than the people at Autism’s Voice who just wanna make money off of… off of _vilifying_ us!”

Donald hadn’t heard Fethry speak this seriously about something other than fish in a long time… then again, he hadn’t spoken to him very much at all since the boys hatched, and he supposed any guy in his mid-thirties has a perfect right to be occasionally serious.

“I’d heard of Autism’s Voice before, but I had no idea they were like that…” Della said.

“Yeah… most autistic adults don’t like them at all. And since they’re the ones that made puzzle pieces a popular symbol for Autism awareness, a lot of autistic people hate the puzzle pieces as a symbol, too. I still like them, though – the puzzle pieces, I mean.”

“How come?” Della asked.

“Well… there are lots of pieces to Autism. And figuring out I had it was kinda like solving the puzzle of my life. All the pieces came together and I finally got to see a picture of myself that made sense. From what you said on the phone, it sounds like Huey’s found a lot of his pieces, too, with that list he made… and a few extra pieces that ‘experts,’ have said fit into his puzzle, but don’t. But he’ll figure out which pieces don’t go, especially with help from the people he’s closest to.” He smiled and Della and then Donald before continuing. 

“Also, autistic people and neurotypical people are puzzling to each other. We don’t really get each other, but the more time we spend together the more we figure each other out. Ooh! And also lots of people with Autism are good at actual puzzles!” 

He sighed and slumped in his seat a little, and started drawing a picture with his finger in some undisturbed condensation on the side of his cup. “It makes me sad that… while puzzle pieces could be such a good symbol for solving Autism like a mystery, Autism’s Voice uses it to symbolize solving Autism like a problem. We’re not problems. We’re complex people with lots of pieces that make a really neat picture. I understand why other autistic people don’t like the puzzle pieces, but I do. I don’t think I have to throw out the baby with the bathwater.” He then grimaced. “Blech, I don’t like that phrase, though… scary imagery.”

“Right? It makes my oviduct hurt,” Della said.

“Ouch… really?”

“No, she’s not being literal,” Donald sighed.

“Hmm…” Fethry took a sip of his milkshake and swallowed. “…Throw out the ice cream with the carton?” he suggested.

“Much better!” Della said. 

Donald groaned and put his face in his hands. Who cared what metaphorical phrase they used or whether or not puzzle pieces were an appropriate analogy? They weren’t here to talk about symbols. 

“We’re getting off-topic!” he pounded both fists on the table. “What about Huey? If he has it, what are we supposed to do? He’s missed that early intervention window –”

Della snorted. “Intervention? It’s Autism, not alcoholism…” 

“But all the experts said –”

“Those experts are wrong…” Fethry whispered loudly with his hand cupped next to his bill.

“THEN WHAT DO I DO?” he asked. And his question startled him. He’d meant to ask _What do we do?_ But it wasn’t a question of what they’d do. Della already seemed to know how to handle this… but at last he had to admit to himself he didn’t. ADHD he could handle… he grew up with a sister who had it, and when Dewey started exhibiting symptoms, he made sure to do for him what had worked for Della. But he knew so little about Autism, and what he did know was scary, and now he was finding out even what he knew wasn’t reliable information. He had nothing to go on whatsoever. Huey was facing something he couldn’t protect him from, even though he tried. 

He’d tried so hard.

He’d tried to convince Huey there was nothing strange about him, that he was a perfectly normal kid, and that he could be a hypochondriac at times, but that was all. He’d tried to protect his self-esteem and his mental health. He’d tried to save him from a label with a stigma… a stigma he now realized he’d believed, and still wasn’t sure how to shake.

“What am I supposed to do?” he asked just above a whisper with his face in his hands, hiding the tears now stinging the edges of his eyes. As he held his breath to keep from crying, an arm wrapped around his shoulders, and a gentle hand pulled one of his from his face. Reluctantly, he turned toward Della, whose eyes were shining, too.

“Just love him like you always have,” she said, “like you promised you always would.”

And his mind flashed back to the moment he promised his expecting sister all those years ago her babies weren’t going to grow up without a father figure in their lives. He had no idea what he was getting himself into at the time, but it didn’t matter. He wanted to be everything to these babies they needed him to be.

Only now he had no idea what his oldest boy needed him to be.

“And…” Fethry quietly chimed in, “…if Huey is autistic… you already know how to love an autistic child, because that’s what you’ve been doing this whole time.”

“Exactly. Nothing’s changing,” Della said. “All a diagnosis is is a little information to help us understand him better.”

It’s easy for her to say nothing was changing. She was new. And since she knew Fethry was autistic, she could pick up on Huey’s traits almost immediately, and she’d suspected it secretly until Huey came to her suspecting it himself. She was still getting to know her boys. This wasn’t a shock to her like it was to him.

He’d been staring vaguely at the table, but Della tilted her head into his line of sight to get him to look at her again. 

“You don’t have to be scared,” she said gently. “There’s a lot neither of us know about Autism… but we can face the unknown together. I mean, that’s kinda our thing, right?”

And Donald couldn’t help the smile that curled the corners of his bill. After so many years of trying to figure out parenthood by himself, he finally had his sister back. And sure, she wasn’t nearly as experienced as he was as a parent, but there were still things neither of them knew. Every day was a new unknown with growing kids. They were both parents of eleven-year-olds for the first time. Next year they’d have to navigate being parents of twelve-year-olds for the first time. And the year after that… no. He wasn’t ready to think of the boys as teenagers. But now, he and Della could finally be clueless and trying their best day by day as a team.

He took a deep breath and sighed. “Okay… let’s go talk to Uncle Scrooge.”

Della gasped, and for a second she didn’t really look like she knew how to respond… like she had an idea of what he was saying but was waiting for clarification. He was just about to open his mouth to say yes, they could have Huey assessed, but the clarification wasn’t needed. Della squealed and threw her arms around him, and he returned the hug. He still thought it was weird how happy she was about the whole thing, but maybe if what he knew about Autism was all wrong like Fethry said… maybe his perspective was the one that needed to change.

Fethry sniffled from the other side of the table, and when Donald and Della both turned their heads toward him, he was wiping his sleeve across the top of his bill. 

“Sorry,” he said when he noticed them looking at him. “It’s just… Huey’s so lucky to have you two!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope there isn't a good organization out there called "Autism's Voice," because then I totally just slandered them when I meant to slander someone else.
> 
> So obviously "Autism's Voice," in this story is a reference to "Autism Speaks," which is a horrible fundraising machine that vilifies us and wants to rid the world of our brain type. They say whatever their donors pay them to say (flipping back and forth on certain things), and put little to no money toward helping us. It all goes toward fearmongering and researching ways to make us turn into NTs like them, or prevent us in the first place. Pretty much all autistic people are offended by them, and those who aren't must be new to the community. I certainly didn't know what they were really like when I was first diagnosed, but then I found an article on their site that left me feeling... very betrayed. Then I found out a ton of us hate them. 
> 
> In the spirit of trendiness, I feel it's only fitting in this day and age to misuse the suffixes phobic/phobia like everyone else does and dub Autism Speaks as autistphobic.
> 
> As you can tell by my self-projecting on Fethry, however, I'm still a fan of the puzzle pieces they made popular, but for my own reasons. That's why I named the fic "Puzzles." 
> 
> Oh, and I know I'm a few hours early, but Happy Fethry Appreciation Week, everyone! There'll be more Fethry in the next chapter! (I mean, I can't just NOT have a scene with him and Huey, right?)


	5. The Voice of Experience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Donald and Della talk to Uncle Scrooge about having Huey assessed, Fethry offers Huey some words of advice based on his own experiences.

Huey knew what time his mom’s autistic friend was supposed to come over, and as he stared at his conspiracy board hidden behind Dewey’s “Dewey Dew-Night” backdrop, he kept glancing down at the time on his phone, which he’d propped up against the baseboard. He wasn’t sure how long the conversation with his uncle Donald would take, and he wasn’t sure if he should even get his hopes up. His mother had already had several conversations with Uncle Donald on the topic, none of which were effective in changing his mind on having him tested.

This person’s scheduled time of arrival came and went. He wondered if this person was punctual or not. From all this recent internet searches, he found many autistic people are extremely punctual, while others struggle with their sense of time as part of their sensory issues. He wished he’d asked his mom to text him when her friend arrived. He had no idea if this person was currently talking to his uncle, or if he hadn’t even arrived yet. 

It was twenty-six minutes after this person’s scheduled arrival time that Huey heard a knock on the frame of his open door. 

“Huey? Are you in here?”

He knew that voice.

“It’s me! Cousin Fethry!”

He didn’t need the introduction. 

Stepping around Dewey’s backdrop, he saw his red-hatted first cousin once removed of all people standing in his doorway. 

“Ah, there you are!” Fethry greeted him.

“Uh…hi! What are you doing here?” He immediately began to question whether or not his tone of surprise sounded rude or not. It didn’t sound rude to him… it sounded like the response to a pleasant surprise, but what if he was wrong? What if that’s not how it came across?

Fortunately, Fethry seemed just as upbeat as ever. “Your parents sent me up here to chat with you.”

Well, that made sense. If Fethry was going to drop in unannounced to see his cousins when one of them was expecting company – company meant to talk with both of them about a private matter like Huey possibly being autistic – then of course they were going to divert Fethry to go hang out with the kids instead. 

“Oh. Yeah, Mom’s actually expecting someone to come over, so she and Uncle Donald are gonna be a little busy for a while. D’you know if the person’s already here? Were they already talking with someone when you got here?”

To Huey’s surprise, Fethry chuckled. “Nooo, I _am_ the person your mom invited over! Before I came up, she told me you didn’t know it was me. She thought it’d be fun if it was a surprise. She was right! You look really surprised right now!”

Huey shut his bill, which had popped open of its own accord. 

“You’re… you’re the person mom invited over? To talk to Uncle Donald? You’re…”

Fethry nodded, and one after another, the few memories he had with Fethry began to replay in his mind. 

“…That… wow… that makes a lot of sense… that makes a TON of sense…” How could he not have seen it before? How did Fethry not cross his mind in all the research he’d been doing over the last few days?

“Yeah… that’s kinda the reaction I had when I found out about me, too,” Fethry said. 

Huey needed to sit down… not that he was dizzy, but sitting seemed like the natural thing to do after hearing big news. He sat at the foot of Louie’s bunk as more and more signs Fethry had exhibited in the past flashed across his mind.

“So… can I come in?” 

Huey scolded himself internally for his poor social skills, leaving his cousin standing in the doorway.

“Oh… yeah, sorry. Come on in. Have a seat somewhere.”

He’d gestured toward the rest of Louie’s bunk and the desk chair, but Fethry sat on the floor.

“Um… you sure you don’t wanna sit in the desk chair or something…?” he asked.

“I’m okay, thanks,” Fethry said.

“So… if Mom invited you over to talk to Uncle Donald, how come they sent you up here?” he asked. But then he wondered if that was rude, as well. “I mean – not that I mind! It’s good to see you. It’s just… Mom and I were thinking maybe you talking to Uncle Donald about being autistic might help him decide to have me tested.”

“I know. We already talked! Your mom and uncle are talking to Uncle Scrooge right now!”

“Wait… really? It worked?” His heart swelled like a balloon with joy and gratitude… until the balloon popped, and he slumped his shoulders and leaned on the bedpost. “…And… now they hafta talk to Uncle Scrooge?”

“He’s the one who’d pay for the assessment.”

“I know… Mom said that, too… it’s just… if it took so many conversations to convince a millennial like Uncle Donald… how easy could it be to convince a Victorian like Uncle Scrooge? A really _stingy_ Victorian? I know mom said he’d be the easier one to talk to, but… would he really?”

“Hm… I dunno! But your mom knows Uncle Scrooge better than we do. He brought her up. And he’s not totally unfamiliar with neurodiversity, thanks to her.”

\-------------------------------------------------------------

“Huey, autistic?!” Scrooge repeated Della from behind his desk.

“Possibly, yeah,” Della said.

Scrooge looked back and forth between Donald and Della a few times. “But… he _talks."_

Della slapped her forehead. 

“Oh. They’re… not all mute, then?”

“No. Most aren’t,” Della explained. “And a lot of ‘em talk incessantly if it’s about something they’re interested in.”

Scrooge gazed into the distance in recollection. “Ah… well, he does do that quite a bit…”

“He’s got a lot of signs of it… so many he’s made a three page color-coded list of different traits.” Della wondered how many times she’d said _“three page color-coded list,”_ in the last day and a half. She was starting to feel like a broken record. But she was so close to getting Huey the assessment. The hardest part was over. She only needed to convince one more person. “He might struggle a little with a diagnosis at first, but I think in the long run it’ll give him peace of mind to know for sure one way or the other instead of wondering, especially considering how stressed he is about it right now.”

“Hm…” Scrooge leaned forward on his desk with his hands folded under his chin. Then he turned his attention to Donald. “You’re very quiet,” he observed. “What do you have to say about all this?”

Della held her breath. Would Donald change his mind now that they were talking with Scrooge? Would he try to gain an ally in him and shut this whole thing down once and for all?

“I don’t know… I’m okay with Huey being tested,” Donald said, and Della breathed a silent sigh of relief. “But…”

And Della stopped breathing again.

“…I know a lot less about Autism than I thought,” he admitted. And once again, Della felt she could breathe easily. “I don’t really know what to do for Huey if we find out he has it,” Donald continued. “ADHD would be one thing… I know what that’s like because of you,” he nodded at Della, “so when I noticed the signs in Dewey, I knew to teach him the things that helped you, and I avoided the things that didn’t. Mrs. B. lets him switch back and forth between school subjects, and have mints during their lessons. And Huey helps him set reminders on his phone so he doesn’t forget things. And it helps. He never wanted or needed to be tested. But Huey –”

“Whooooaaa whoa whoa wait a minute,” Della interrupted. “Hold up… ‘never wanted OR _needed to be tested?’_ He was tested though, right?”

She looked back and forth between her brother and uncle. Donald rubbed his arm. Scrooge said nothing but kept his eyes fixed on Donald.

_“Right?”_ she repeated at Scrooge.

“Ask your brother.”

“Donald…?”

Donald scrunched his shoulders right up to the sides of his head and looked anywhere but at her. “Well… he’s so much like you, and the way you coped in school works for him, so I just thought…”

“Unbelievable!” Della threw her hands in the air. _“‘We can’t just go diagnosing kids with stuff like this, Del,’”_ she said in a deep, mocking man’s voice.

“I don’t talk like that!” Donald said.

“Yeah, I know you don’t, but I can’t do your voice! My GOSH I can’t believe you’ve been giving me heck when you’ve diagnosed Dewey with ADHD all on your own!” The blood rushed to her face and her pulse pounded in her ears. The fact he’d be so attentive to what Dewey might need but ignore Huey’s struggles or pretend they don’t exist… and then treat her like she’s sabotaging Huey’s life! 

“Why have Dewey diagnosed?” Donald said. “I wasn’t gonna have him put on medication! We all know how that turned out for you!”

“Ahhh the Ritalin Fiasco of ’97…” Scrooge said as he half-turned his attention back to the papers on his desk. “Definitely not worth repeating.”

“I wouldn’t want him on those meds either,” Della said, “But ADHD isn’t something you can just say a kid has because you think he does!” 

“Okay, okay! Do you want him diagnosed, too?”

“Well this conversation just became twice as expensive,” Scrooge tapped the bottom edge of a stack of papers on his desk to neaten them. 

“Does Dewey know you guys do these things for him because he might have ADHD?”

“Yes,” Donald answered.

“Does it bother him he doesn’t know for sure?”

“He hasn’t said so.”

“Then since he’s not upset about it, and we’re not going the medication route, and he doesn’t need paperwork for accommodations at like a public school or anything, no. He’s fine for now.”

Donald’s bill dropped open as he stared at Della incredulously for a second. “But – Wh – What’s…!” he stammered before quacking loudly in frustration. “THEN WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?!” 

“The problem is Huey and I have been thinking he could be autistic and you treat both him and me like we’re crazy for coming to that conclusion and wanting an assessment when you have absolutely no problem deciding Dewey has ADHD without consulting a professional!”

“I told you! ADHD is different! It’s super common and not that big a deal!”

_“‘NOT THAT BIG A DEAL?!’”_ Della fumed. “Was it _‘not that big a deal,’_ when teachers threatened to hold me back? Or told me to try harder when I was already trying my hardest? Or told me how bad I was being on an almost daily basis?!”

“This isn’t about you! It’s about the kids!”

“Yeah, the kids whose neurodivergent struggles you’re trivializing by calling them ‘not that big a deal!”

_“I’m_ trivializing?” Donald said. “I’m the one worried about Autism and you’re the one telling me I shouldn’t freak out about it! I don’t care if they are ‘brain cousins,’” he air quoted, “They’re two totally different things!”

“They’re not different enough for it to be fair that you embrace the idea of ADHD for Dewey but fight so hard against the possibility Huey could have Autism!”

“Well I’m not fighting it NOW! We’re talking to Uncle Scrooge, aren’t we?!”

“Technically, you’re just YELLING AT EACH OTHER!” Scrooge rose from his chair. He stepped around his desk and began to shoo the twins from his study. “Curse me kilts! If you kids are just going te fight about your kids, do it somewhere else so I can work in peace! When you’re ready to have a proper discussion on the topic, I’ll be waiting!”

The next thing Della knew, she and Donald were out in the hallway with a slammed door at their backs. 

The hallway was eerily silent, until a grandfather clock began to chime the hour far off in the distance. The chimes came and went, and the hallway became silent again.

_Uncle Scrooge was supposed to be the easy one to talk to…_ Della thought. _How did this go worse than trying to convince Donald?_

And it didn’t take her more than half a second to realize it was because Scrooge was hardly part of the conversation at all. Once again, she and Donald had fought over Huey. She traced the argument back to its beginning. _If I’d just kept my mouth shut when Donald said Dewey didn’t need to be tested, this wouldn’t have happened… if I’d just focused on getting Huey his assessment instead of snapping at Donald…_

The silence of the hallway was both refreshing after the argument, yet as shaming as an old mother giving the silent treatment, magnifying Della’s guilt. She wanted to say something to Donald but couldn’t bring herself to speak, or even look at him. 

“I’m sorry,” Donald said beside her.

And Della shut her eyes and sighed. Donald wasn’t the one who needed to apologize. “No… that was on me. I’m sorry.”

“On you? It was an argument, not a monologue.”

Della let out a hollow chuckle. “Are we arguing about who’s more sorry now?”

Donald let out a chuckle too, in his scratchy, quacky voice, and Della finally looked him in the eye, though only for a moment before dropping her gaze to the floor again. His smile was contagious, but not enough to absolve her from the guilt of her newest instance of failing her son. 

“Wanna try that conversation one more time?” Donald asked.

It was the last thing she expected him to suggest. She thought he’d just shrug and say, “Oh well, we tried,” and whistle all the way back to his houseboat… but he wasn’t. He was standing by her. He was willing to try to get Huey assessed… and not reluctantly. When she and Donald first walked into Scrooge’s study, part of her felt she was dragging Donald there against his will, even though he was the one who’d said, “Let’s go talk to Uncle Scrooge.” Telling Scrooge he still didn’t know how he felt about it reinforced her idea that maybe she was forcing his hand. But here he was, willing to take another step toward getting Huey tested.

Della took a deep breath and nodded, and Donald tapped the door with his knuckle before opening it. Scrooge was sitting at his desk again, adjusting the position of his glasses on his bill to better read something on one of the papers on his desk. He glanced up at them for a moment before placing his papers off to the side. 

“How can I help you?” he said with the air of a father giving his kids a do-over. 

“Uncle Scrooge, we want to have Huey assessed for Autism,” Donald said before Della could say anything. His use of “we,” did not go unnoticed. “I still don’t know how I feel about the whole thing, but it’s really upsetting Huey to not know for sure.”

“Ye’ve told me that much. Have ye already found… whatever sort of specialist diagnoses these things?”

“Uh…” they replied in unison. 

“Go on and do yer research, then,” Scrooge said. “Find out what sort of doctor it takes, and search for the cheapest one who knows what they’re talking about…” he turned his attention to Della. “…if you’re _sure_ there’s a good chance he’s got it.”

“There’s definitely a good chance,” Della said. “I thought it even before he said anything.”

Scrooge raised his brow and sat back. “I wouldnae have guessed… then again, I hadn’t heard of an autistic child who could talk, before today… so I’ll take yer word for it. Let me know when ye’ve found a doctor.”

Donald nodded and Della thanked him, but it wasn’t until they’d taken a few steps toward the door that it hit Della:

_Uncle Scrooge just agreed to pay to have Huey assessed._

She spun around and ran to the other side of Scrooge’s desk before throwing her arms around him. It took Scrooge by surprise, but after a moment he hugged her tight and tilted his head against hers.

“Thanks, Uncle Scrooge.”

“You’re very welcome… now go along with you; I’ve got a few things to finish before dinner.”

Della almost skipped as she and Donald left their uncle to his work, and once out in the hallway, Donald was the next to be surprised with a bone-crushing hug.

“Oof! You hug like Granny McDuck!” 

There was no one left to convince. All she and Donald had to do now was find someone to do the assessment. She was finally succeeding for her son.

\------------------------------------------------------------

“I mean I’ve gone through my whole life thinking I’m perfectly normal and wondering at the same time why my normal isn’t normal enough,” Huey paced the floor while Fethry sat against the nightstand. “I wouldn’t have guessed Autism in a million years.”

“Yeah… it’s a pretty wide spectrum,” Fethry said.

Huey kept pacing without even looking at Fethry. “I know the JWG backwards and forwards… there’s a pretty big paragraph about it, but still… I didn’t think it applied to me. I never would’ve thought it applied to Violet, either.”

“I hear girls are even harder to diagnose.”

“And apparently Mom picked up on my symptoms almost right away! She just didn’t say anything… if I hadn’t figured this stuff out on my own, when would she have said something?”

“As soon as she needed to, I’d think.”

“One of the first things she thought when she got home was there was something wrong with me… I mean I know she keeps saying there’s nothing wrong with me, but…” _She still hasn’t read everything I've read,_ he thought. He’d stopped pacing and stared at the floor, the edges of his eyes beginning to sting. He blinked and took a deep breath to stop his tears in their tracks, and it worked… until some of the words he read online flashed across his mind again:

_“Socially retarded,” “Incapable of emotional reciprocity,” “devastating effects on family and society…”_

He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes to try and smear away the image of those bits of text and took a few more deep breaths.

“Huey?” 

He sniffled and swallowed, glad to be winning the battle against his tear ducts. “Yeah?”

“I’m gonna ask you a question, and you don’t have to answer it out loud… and even if you do, I promise I won’t be offended, whatever you say, because I’ve been through this. Whether you answer it out loud or not, I just want you to really think about your answer… really ask yourself the question.”

To frame a question that much… Huey’s heart beat just a little harder with dread, and when he took another deep breath, he didn’t let any of it out except to say, “Okay.” 

“This is a self-reflection question; I’m not asking to get the answer for myself… do you think badly of autistic people?”

Huey’s knee-jerk reaction would have been to say, “No, of course not!” especially given he was talking to someone he now knew was autistic. But Fethry made it clear he didn’t want him to just blurt out an answer.

_“Do you think badly of autistic people?”_ he let the question replay in his mind. 

Before this whole thing… he viewed autistic people as people with a disability. He certainly didn’t view them as evil or bad or whatever else. That’d be like viewing people in wheelchairs as bad. So no… of course he didn’t think badly of autistic people. They were people. They just needed a little extra help… right?

So he shook his head. 

“Then how come you think badly of yourself for possibly being autistic?”

He didn’t realize there’d be a part two to the question… and this time there was no knee-jerk reaction answer that came to his mind. 

_Why do I think worse of myself now if I don’t have a problem with autistic people?_ He supposed just because he didn’t think badly of them, that didn’t mean he wanted to be one of them… but why not?

And all those words people said online – experts or the average neurotypical – flashed across his mind again. Everything they said about Autism made it sound terrible… a developmental disorder… that children with Autism were less than ideal… not the perfect child… more challenging to raise… that their parents were victims of a cruel joke of fate. And Huey could see he’d taken these words and sentiments to heart. But what else was he supposed to believe? So much of what the internet said of autistic people was true of him… and what’s worse, other people could see his symptoms. He’d been bullied in the past. Even his brothers pick on him from time to time… then again, all siblings pick on each other… but his brothers pick on him for these traits. And his mom could see he wasn’t perfect when she got home. And his uncle doesn’t want it to be true. And he’s causing problems between them.

_…Devastating effects on families and society…_

He sank to the floor and started picking at the fibers of the rug. If he were being honest with himself… he did think having Autism was a bad thing… that autistic people were defective somehow. All the experts seem to think so. Even the high-functioning ones still qualified for a diagnosis of a disorder because of their less-than-adequate social skills and sensory processing. No matter how Huey tried to look at it… autistic people didn’t measure up to neurotypical people… and whether or not he was right about having Autism, he still had all the signs and symptoms, so he didn’t measure up, either.

“Being a little different doesn’t make you bad,” Fethry said.

He remembered Fethry had said something like that before… only that time it was about his giant mutant pet krill. But he remembered thinking the same words applied to his big cousin. Fethry was pretty weird, and Dewey made sure Huey knew he was just as weird as him. But when Fethry said being a little different didn’t make his krill bad, Huey realized it didn’t make his cousin bad, either. All of Fethry’s quirks… which Huey now realized were tied to Autism… didn’t make him a bad guy, or crazy, or any of that. And then there was Violet! She wasn’t bad at all… she was so smart, resourceful, selfless, encouraging, and without a doubt, the best Woodchuck he knew. He could never look at her as defective.

And if Fethry and Violet weren’t bad… maybe possibly having Autism didn’t make him bad, either… but what was he supposed to think of all those articles he read that made autistic people sound broken?

Soon he heard his mother and uncle’s voices coming up the stairs, and then his mother’s prosthesis against the wooden steps.

“Hey guys!” Della greeted them both when she and Donald appeared in the doorway.

“Hi!” Fethry greeted her back, and Donald raised his brow at him and Huey. 

“What are you both doing on the floor?” he mainly asked Fethry.

“You’re on the floor, too,” he said, pointing at Donald’s feet. 

“Ha! He’s got ya there, bro,” Della said, joining Huey on the rug and wrapping her arms around his shoulders before kissing the side of his head.

Donald shrugged and joined the others on the floor.

“So… how’d it go?” Huey dared to ask. He tried to read his uncle’s face, but wasn’t sure what to make of the little smile Donald gave his sister other than he must want her to deliver the news.

“We’re getting you the assessment,” Della said with a big smile.

And it was the same thing as when Fethry told him they were talking to Uncle Scrooge… Huey wanted to be excited and happy… but he sort of deflated. Somehow being closer to an answer was even scarier than speculating on his own.

“What’s the matter? I thought that’s what you wanted,” Donald said.

“It is, but… what happens if they say I have it?”

“Well… nothing, really,” his mother said. “You’re not going on any medications, we’re not having you lobotomized…”

“Did they used to do that to autistic people?!” Huey asked. 

“Yeah… things were pretty dark before our time…”

“Okay that’s what _won’t_ happen… but… I mean _something’s_ gotta happen when I find out, right?” he asked Fethry.

“Well, at that point you’d probably deal with the ‘darkness phase,’ of Autism awareness. But it sounds like you are already, a little bit. You’d be hyper-aware of all these traits you have, and really hard on yourself for all of them because you’d know the Autism won’t go away, so you’d worry you’ll struggle your whole life and never grow from any of it. But that’s not true. After a while you’d realize you have a lot of strengths because of it, and that neurotypicals aren’t perfect ideal people, either. You’d move into the acceptance phase, and then the celebration phase.”

“Is there a way to speed up the… ‘darkness phase?’” Huey asked.

“Sorta… but you’re not gonna like it.”

“What?”

“I’m just gonna sound like a bossy, boring adult for saying it…”

“What is it?” Huey asked again, wishing he’d just spit it out already.

“You’re gonna have to ground yourself from looking stuff up about Autism.”

Well he was right about one thing: Huey didn’t like the sound of that at all. 

“But… if I don’t search for traits or facts about it, how am I supposed to learn about what makes me… me? How can I explain myself to other people if I need to?”

“When I first found out, all I wanted to do was learn everything I could about having Asperger’s. I checked out library books, I searched the internet… I wanted to learn as much as I could about it so I could understand myself completely and be able to explain why I’m quirky to other people, just like you want to. I thought it would help me feel better about myself. But then one time I was talking to Del – I mean, your mom – on the phone about it, and she asked me, ‘How do you really feel about yourself when you’re looking all this stuff up?’ And I realized it made me feel terrible. So I stopped. I spent more time doing what I love and trying to be a better version of me instead.”

“And you learned to accept that you’re autistic after a while, huh?” Della asked.

“Yeah… and one time I looked up stuff about Autism when I was in a better place, and it was like… a relapse in low self-esteem. I realized I didn’t need internet articles to feel better about the whole thing. I needed to stay _away_ from them. Huey, if you find out you’re autistic, and you search the internet to find solutions to your Autism like it’s a problem, all you’re going to find are articles reinforcing the idea that it’s a problem. I’ve been there. You don’t need that. You’ll grow as a person way faster without people telling you you’re broken all the time.”

Huey hated to admit it to himself, but… that made sense… a lot of sense. But could he have the self-discipline to not look things up constantly? That would be the real test. It was like a compulsion. And up until now, facts would comfort him when he was nervous… but this was a situation unlike any he’d ever faced.

“And Huey…” Donald said, “…I’m sorry. I was reading the same sort of things about Autism you must have been reading. I’m sorry if anything I said or did made you feel worse. Whatever a doctor says doesn’t change who you’ve always been, and I love you. Always have, always will.”

This time, there was no winning the battle against his tear ducts. He jumped up from his spot on the rug and threw himself into his uncle’s arms before sobbing over his shoulder. Donald held him close and stroked the feathers on the back of his head. 

“You’re okay… you’re alright,” Donald said quietly as Huey continued to cry. “I’ve got you… we’ve all got you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I apologize for any typos. I don't have a beta.
> 
> You'd think being furloughed/quarantined would mean I get these chapters out quicker, but... nerp. Sims 4 is a trap, people. Lord, have mercy on me, a simmer.
> 
> Anyway, I gotta tell you, when the counselor I was seeing while I was in college asked me how I felt when I looked up stuff about Autism, and asked me if it made me feel better or worse... game changer. I started learning to accept myself instead of letting articles and memes drag me down.
> 
> As for Donald, I really wanted to reiterate that his struggle to accept this possibility comes from what he's seen or heard about Autism on the news or what he's read online. And now he's realizing what he's heard and read isn't reliable, and Huey can still have a bright future whether he's autistic or not. It's scary for a parent to hear their child could be at a disadvantage, and for Donald... realizing that what he's heard about Autism is wrong is both a relief, and also scary in its own way, because now he doesn't know what to believe. But he knows he loves his boy.


	6. An Off Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On his first adventure since his speculations began, Huey finds it incredibly difficult to participate and engage as he used to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally done! And on the final day of Huey Week 2020! Free day! Woo-oo! 
> 
> I apologize for the long hiatus... I knew I needed to include an adventure in this story, but adventures are like... not my strength. :/

It didn’t take long at all for Donald and Della to find a doctor who could assess Huey. Donald suggested Della get the number for a child psychologist from the Sabrewings, since Huey mentioned Violet was on the spectrum. Della called Indy on Monday and he gave her the number for Dr. Elissa Birdgen. He also promised not to tell the girls about the conversation, saying it’d be up to Huey to tell his friends, just like it was up to Violet to tell hers. 

Della thanked him and made the appointment with Dr. Birdgen immediately after their phone call so she wouldn’t forget, but couldn’t get an appointment sooner than two weeks out.

_Two weeks._

Two weeks for Huey to wait and wonder. Two weeks of keeping it a secret from his brothers and Webby. Two weeks of trying to do what cousin Fethry said: not looking for anything regarding Autism on the internet. 

_You have enough information,_ he tried to tell himself. _But… do I have all of it? Have I identified every sign and symptom I exhibit?_ He’d pore over his list, again and again, wondering if that still counts as following Fethry’s advice or not since so much of it consisted of symptoms he found on the internet that weren’t particularly uplifting. He’d wonder if he was just one symptom short in any category for a diagnosis, and wonder if this doctor would even take him seriously or not. _What if she doesn’t diagnose me?_

Then he’d wonder why he’s afraid to not be diagnosed when he had spent so much time worrying he would be. _Am I just afraid all my research will be for nothing? Or am I afraid of not being special… of not belonging to this sort of… club? …Nah, that’s a Dewey thing. Am I just afraid to be wrong? …What if I am wrong? What if I made Uncle Donald and Mom fight for no reason?_

And those words he read online about “devastating effects on families and society,” would flash across his mind and he’d go back to hoping he was wrong about being autistic after all so he wouldn’t drive his family apart.

And that is how he spent Monday night, and Tuesday, and Wednesday, until his uncle Scrooge whisked him and most of the family away to Peru on Thursday to search for the treasure of an ancient king whose name… for the first time ever, Huey couldn’t remember. Normally he remembered details like the name of the historical figure whose treasure they were hunting, but not this time.

He was barely listening to Uncle Scrooge’s pre-adventure briefing that usually got them all hyped. His mind was back in Duckburg, almost five thousand miles away, and there it stayed… mostly. Once in the chambers under the temple, he’d tune in every once and a while to his family’s conversation. Dewey talked excitedly to their mom about the temple they visited last year that was similar.

“Buh… ya see one ancient deadly temple, you’ve seen ‘em all,” Louie shrugged with his hands in the front pocket of his hoodie.

“How can you SAY that?” And as Webby began her lengthy comparison between the cultures and peoples, Huey tuned out again, grateful he wouldn’t have to be the one to explain the obvious differences… although, he’d have stuck to mainly comparing the architectural differences between the temples.

They pressed onward, the voices of Huey’s family and the pitter-patter of their feet ever echoing throughout the chambers. 

_Was it always this disorienting?_ Huey wondered. 

His stomach was starting to hurt and he didn’t know why it should, so naturally, he started looking for a reason, and he came up with several. This place wasn’t supposed to be particularly overwhelming, sensory-wise… but it smelled a little damp. And the dust and dirt on the stone floor was kind of rough and uneven and cold… he didn’t like how it felt under his feet, now that he thought about it. But why was he thinking about it? Did this always bother him? _What if I really am being a hypochondriac? What if I’m talking myself into all this? Am I experiencing psychosomatic symptoms caused by hypervigilance looking for any sign of -_

“HUEY!” 

A hand gripped the back of his polo and yanked him back so suddenly he screamed. Now wrapped tightly in Uncle Donald’s arms, he looked up to see just what he’d been about to walk into: blades swinging from the ceiling. 

“Geez, Huey! What is up with you?! Do you have a death wish?!” Louie yelled somewhere to his left. 

It wasn’t the first time they’d encountered this sort of rig on adventures, but it was the first time Huey was so stuck in his head he wasn’t paying attention to the world around him… well, he was, but at the same time, he wasn’t. He’d always felt a little more in-tune with his environment sensory-wise than others, but now it was all-consuming, and even dangerous. It was like his mind was zeroing in on all the wrong things. 

And, as comforting as he usually found hugs from his parents, being held so tightly by his uncle, and now, his mother joining them… was not helping. As well-meaning as they were, as much as they were all probably experiencing the same horrible adrenaline rush from what almost was, he wanted to squirm free. He knew they’d almost just lost him. He knew they both needed to hug him, but… 

“Need air…" 

They both stepped back, Donald still keeping his hands on his shoulders and Della reaching for his cheek. But it still wasn’t enough. He shrugged off his uncle’s hands and turned his face from his mother and took a good ten steps to distance himself from them – from everyone – before sitting on the ground and curling up in a ball. He’d have thought getting yanked back from giant swinging blades would have snapped him out of the funk he was in, only it didn’t. It was like his senses were still insulating him – keeping him from thinking clearly – only now he was also aware of everyone’s eyes on him, and the embarrassment of nearly doing something so stupid and making Louie question whether or not he had a death wish and the guilt of scaring them all and shrinking back from his parents was overwhelming. He thought he’d feel better with some space, but he didn’t… especially imagining what his mother’s face must look like. She waited so long to be able to hug and comfort her babies, and here he was not letting her touch him. 

“Alright, lad?” Scrooge asked. 

It wasn’t the chipper way he’d normally ask if one of them was alright… like he was expecting them to say, “Yep,” right back… even _he_ sounded worried about him this time, and Huey didn’t know how to reply. He couldn’t just start verbally processing everything going on in his head right now. Dewey, Louie, and Webby still had no idea, and he wanted to keep it that way until he knew for sure. But no, he wasn’t alright. He couldn’t do this. 

“Er… tell ye what, kids, why don’t we take a wee snack break before pressing on?" 

Huey could hear the backpack zippers, hand sanitizer caps, and snack baggies and water bottles opening. He knew he was supposed to eat and drink, too, but… he felt like he didn’t deserve it somehow. Like, how could he just scare his family half to death and force them all to take a break now and then just sit there and casually eat his trail mix like he’s done nothing wrong? How could he just be in his own world and then snap out of it, not when he almost dies, but as soon as Scrooge suggests they eat food? No… he couldn’t take a snack break with everyone else. 

“You too, li’l boo,” his mother said, sitting about three feet away from him to his right. Next thing he knew, someone was rummaging through his own backpack, pulling out his water bottle and snacks. Uncle Donald then sat in front of him and tried to pass them to him, but he wouldn’t take them. 

“Huey, you need to stay hydrated,” his uncle reminded him. 

Huey had to admit that was true. He knew he was being ridiculous and illogical. Of course he needed water. And, despite feeling the need to punish himself, he knew he’d only be disobeying his uncle if he didn’t take his water bottle. Plus, not taking care of himself would only cause them more trouble. 

He hadn’t eaten much by the time Scrooge was ready to carry on, but he wasn’t hungry, anyway. The swinging blades were easy to dodge now that they’d lost some momentum, and once on the other side, Huey slipped his hand into his mother’s – partially so he wouldn’t walk right into another trap, and partially as a means of apologizing for earlier. She didn’t say anything, but gave his hand a gentle squeeze and kissed the side of his head. 

The family had to evade a few more traps here and there, and Huey was finally feeling a little more alert and didn’t walk into any of them. Still, he wasn’t feeling one hundred percent, even when they eventually came to a large wall with some sort of riddle on it they had to solve. It was covered in tiles with pictures on them that looked like they could move. 

“Reminds me of the temple of Monteplumage!” Della said before Huey zoned out again. 

His eyes travelled all over the wall and tried to make sense of the symbols on it, but… he felt like his brain was wrapped in cotton, keeping his chaotic, swirling thoughts in and any new information out. He had never felt so… _not present_ before. 

“It was YOUR fault!” 

His uncle Donald’s voice startled him. His heart raced seeing Donald pointing his finger at Della. 

“Hey, I didn’t tell you to eat the cacao beans!” Della countered. 

Webby made a face. “You ate plain cacao beans?” 

“The guy’ll willingly eat black licorice. What do you expect?” 

Donald ignored the ladies’ remarks. “If you hadn’t opened the cage in the first place, the chicken wouldn’t have escaped!” 

_What in the world did I miss?_ Huey wondered. 

“Pipe down, you two,” Scrooge scolded the twins. “We’ve got te solve the riddle te get te the next chamber.” 

“But Uncle Scrooge, these symbols aren’t even their written language. They’re not like Egyptian hieroglyffs. They’re just pictures,” Webby pointed out. 

“Could be some sort of pattern… Huey!” Scrooge turned towards him with a big smile. “What do you think, lad?” 

“I…” Huey glanced over the wall again, but he might as well have been staring at a blank wall, as much as his brain was registering. “…I don’t know.” 

If Scrooge was disappointed, he didn’t show it. “Sure ye do, this is right up your alley!” 

Huey wondered if Uncle Scrooge was referring to how people on the Autism spectrum were supposed to be good at pattern recognition. Then again, how much did Scrooge even know about Autism? Did he know excellent pattern recognition was a sign? Or was he just trying to engage Huey in the adventure again? 

All eyes were on him. His face was hot. His neck was cold. 

“Uh… I… don’t know, um…” he approached the wall and tried to take in how many of each tile there were. “Maybe…” he reached up and moved one over, but immediately heard stone scraping on stone and felt vibrating under his feet. 

“Ohhh it’s one of theeeese…” Della said calmly as the walls slowly began to move inward. “How many of these have we been in, Donald? Seven? Eight?” 

“Too many!” Donald squawked. 

“Alright, no need te panic,” Scrooge said. “We’ve just got to solve the riddle before we’re smashed to bits. Now, what’ve ye got so far, Huey? Any ideas?” 

He didn’t have any ideas before this, and he didn’t now! _Those internet articles were right,_ he thought, _my stupid defective brain’s going to get my whole family killed. It’s all my fault. It’s all my fault!_

He fell to his knees and hit the heels of his palms against his forehead as tears filled his eyes. 

_IT’S MY FAULT! IT’S MY FAULT! IT’S MY FAULT!_

Hands much bigger than his hands grabbed them and pulled them away from his face. Everyone’s voices swirled around him as the cold, dirty floor scraped against his legs and the walls inched ever nearer to his family. His tears tickled his face and he couldn’t wipe them because when he tried to bring his hands closer to his face again, the hands holding his would tighten their grip, almost painfully, and tug his hands away from his face again. There were voices aimed at him, voices talking about the riddle on the wall, echoes of voices, and louder than all of them, an inaudible inner voice, saying, _even if you all survive this, there’s no way they’ll still love you. Either way, you just lost your family._

\------------------------------------------------ 

_Only a sliver of gold lined the horizon. Above it, pale orange blended into blue that grew deeper and deeper into an expanse of navy, dotted with the first stars of the night and streaked with wisps of cloud that gave way to the wings of a red cargo plane. _

Della stared out at the sky growing ever darker before her. She almost – though not quite – wished Launchpad were on this adventure so she could climb down the ladder and take care of her baby. She’d felt so helpless back in the chamber – so torn between wanting to comfort her boy, though she wasn’t sure how, and wanting to help her family solve the riddle. In the end, she chose to help with the riddle, to keep all of them alive. Donald seemed to have everything under control with Huey, anyway. Nevertheless… she felt so guilty… so useless. She sighed and slouched in her chair, dropping her eyes to the control panel. 

“Penny for your thoughts?” Scrooge asked from the seat beside her. 

As soon as he said, “Penny,” Della thought of her dear Moon bestie, and recalled some of the times she rambled to her about how much she loves her boys, how she couldn’t wait to be home, and how thanks to Penny and the other Moonlanders, she’d finally have a chance to be a good mom. 

And here she was, with no clue what she’s doing ninety percent of the time. 

“You’ve been on a lot more adventures with Huey than I have,” she began, barely able to mask the regret in her voice. “Has he ever been like this on an adventure before?” 

“Well… no… but we all have our days, don’t we?” 

“Even you?" 

He didn’t answer immediately. 

“Well… _sometimes_ I’ve had adventures that… didnae go very smoothly, but… I’m Scrooge McDuck! Things have a way of working out in the end.” 

Della sighed again. Of course it wouldn’t be like Uncle Scrooge to outright confess a weakness of any kind. It was a confidence she admired so much growing up… a confidence she’d tried to emulate. But things were different now. 

“Things’ll work out with Huey, too,” Scrooge added, drawing Della back out of her thoughts. 

“I just…” she had to blink a few times, grateful she was flying a plane and not driving a car. “I feel like I’m breaking my kid,” her voice wavered. 

“What? Nonsense! Y–" 

“Was I not encouraging enough? Did I push him too hard? Would he still be struggling this much if I were…” but she stopped herself. Every time something bad happened with one of her kids, even things that weren’t her fault, she wondered if they had been better off without her. But leaving them in any way was not an option. It never would be. She wasn’t going anywhere and she didn’t want to say anything to make Scrooge wonder if she was thinking of removing herself from the picture, because she wasn’t. As far as she was concerned, her kids were stuck with her… but was that a good thing for them? And if it wasn’t, what should she do to be better? It’s not like she had a mom when she was their age to be an example… 

Scrooge swiveled his chair to look back at the kids. Della had a few minutes before, and Dewey, Louie, and Webby had been huddled together in the back of the plane where Scrooge usually gave his pre-adventure briefing. They must have still been where she’d last seen them, because Scrooge swiveled back and said with a low voice, “I’m sure this is just temporary. Your confidence took a dip after finding out ye have ADHD, but ye bounced back… and Huey will, too, once he knows for sure whether or not he’s got Autism… especially since he’s got a mum who – more or less – knows what he’s going through.” 

Della smiled a little. She knew that much was true… that out of everyone else at McDuck Manor, she was the one who most understood what Huey was facing… even if her diagnosis wasn’t the same one. She wished more than ever she could be taking care of Huey now instead of flying. 

“I wanna go check on him… if I give you the controls, can you hold her steady while I…?” 

Scrooge put his hand up to dismiss the idea. “I’m sure he’ll be just fine until we land,” he said. “Besides, Donald’s with him.” 

“I _was,”_ Donald said behind them as he reached the top of the ladder. 

Della swiveled in her chair. “How is he?” she asked over her shoulder. 

Donald leaned with his elbow against the edge of Scrooge’s seat. “He’s got a headache… I got him to eat something so he could take some ibuprofen.” 

“Has he had the headache all day?” Scrooge asked. 

“No… since the chamber with the riddle. He feels like he let us down.” 

“What? Preposterous,” Scrooge said. “He’s not the only clever one in the group. Between the two of us,” Scrooge pointed his thumb at himself and Della, “plus Louie and Webby, we had it solved with more than a meter to spare! And we found the treasure! Besides, Dewey’s tripped dozens of traps, and I’m not disappointed in him.” 

“Maybe you should go talk to Huey,” Della suggested. “It might be good for him to hear from you that he didn’t let us down.” 

Scrooge agreed, and Donald wasted no time in taking Scrooge’s seat once he’d left it. 

“Do NOT put your feet on the control panel,” Scrooge could hear Della warning Donald as he climbed down the ladder. 

“Oh fine, _Mom,”_ Donald said. 

Della laughed, and it took Scrooge by surprise. He realized Donald must have said it with a smile… not truly sassing Della, but drawing her attention to her mom-like behavior. She still seemed so self-conscious about whether or not she was enough of a mom that any time Scrooge or Donald could affirm her as a mother… even with feigned sass, in this case… it seemed to cheer her up a bit. 

When Scrooge reached the bottom of the ladder, he found Huey a little ways away, lying on top of his sleeping bag and mat, curled up on his side and facing the wall. Scrooge knew he couldn’t be asleep yet, so he made his way over and parked himself at the foot of the sleeping bag. 

“Alright, lad?” he asked quietly, not wanting to aggravate his headache. 

The tiny ball of feathers curled up beside him reached up to wipe his eye before sniffling. 

“I know ye’re not used to being the one who sets off traps, but everyone else has. If you ask me, ye’ve put off your initiation a wee bit too long.” 

He wasn’t sure if the sound Huey made was a chuckle or a sob, and since Huey still wouldn’t talk, he didn’t get any clarification. 

“Come now, Huey… so ye’ve had an off day. Ye’re a clever lad, and that mind of yours has saved our tail feathers on numerous occasions…" 

“But today it almost got all of us killed." 

“As I said, ye had an off day. I was just telling your mum and uncle Donald, Dewey’s put us in danger countless times, and we still all like him, don’t we?” 

Huey didn’t say anything for a moment, but then shrugged the shoulder he wasn’t lying on and grunted. 

Scrooge couldn’t help but chuckle… it reminded him of something preteen Donald would’ve done if they were talking about Della. “Spoken like a true brother.” He looked up at the level above them and listened. He could barely hear the others talking. It seemed everyone was talking in hushed voices, and the plane’s engines did plenty to conceal their conversations. 

“I know you and I haven’t talked properly about Autism since your mother and uncle told me ye think you might have it,” he said, “but te me… it doesnae change a thing." 

Huey turned over his shoulder so he could look right at Scrooge – his brow raised in suspicion of Scrooge’s sincerity. 

“I mean it,” Scrooge assured him with a smile. “I admit I’m no Autism expert, but even I know it’s not some virus ye just catch at the age of eleven that changes who ye are. If ye’ve got it, ye’ve had it as long as I’ve known you and longer. And every brilliant, shining moment ye’ve had at home or on an adventure, ye had being exactly the way ye are. The Huey ye are now is the same Huey I’ve gotten so used to… the Huey I care so much about. And I’m proud of ye." 

The boy’s eyes filled with tears that quickly spilled over the edges of his bill. He wiped his forearm across his face before sitting up and reaching for Scrooge, who wrapped his arms around Huey and pulled him close while the boy continued to weep. 

“Ye’re alright, my boy… ye’re alright.” 

Huey sniffled. “Ow…” 

“What? What hurts?” Scrooge asked, releasing Huey from the embrace and sitting back to look him over. 

“My head…” he groaned, grabbing the right side as he grimaced. 

“Sat up too fast, did ye?" 

“Mm-hm…" 

“Alright,” and he gave his nephew another hug. “Get some rest then. We’ll land for the night in a few hours, but ye best get a head start for your head’s sake.” He unzipped the edge of Huey’s sleeping bag and Huey took the hint and crawled inside. Scrooge zipped him up and patted his head gently. “Night, lad. Sleep tight.” 

Meanwhile, as Scrooge made his way back to the cockpit to demand his seat back from Donald, Dewey, Louie, and Webby continued their hushed conversation in the back of the plane. 

“Why would Huey make a whole conspiracy board and not tell me?” Webby said. “Conspiracy boards are one of my favorite things.” 

“Bugh… all the things are your favorite things,” Louie said. “Point is, the guy is losing it.” 

“Yeah, he’s always been kinda… what’s the word?” Dewey asked. 

“Neurotic?” Louie offered. 

“Ooh, that’s a good one. I’m goin’ with it. Yeah, he’s always been neurotic, but ever since he started working on that board he’s been muttering to himself, staying up super late…” 

“Yeah, which has gotten us basically all grounded from technology every night starting at nine!” 

“But… that’s our bedtime, anyway,” Webby said, confused as to why that would bother Louie, but Louie ignored the comment. 

“Something’s going on with him…” he said, holding the knuckle of his index finger to his bill. “We’ve already tried confronting him about it, sort of…" 

“And…?” 

“He just said he was fine,” Dewey said. 

“He’s not gonna admit anything, so we’re gonna have to do a little snooping of our own,” Louie decided. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meltdowns are rough... and Huey's wasn't as bad as it could have been. Still, those feelings of, "No one will love me now that they've seen me like that," are all too real. I mean, it's not real that people will stop loving the person who had the meltdown, but it's real to feel like that, ya know? And ugh... they way you feel physically afterwards... not fun.
> 
> I'll try to not take fifty years on the next chapter... trying to figure out adventures is just a butt. And I figured, ya know, why not utilize the fact I can't come up with anything original when it comes to adventures? So I had the family chat about how they had similar adventures in the past. XD And I used Huey being trapped in his own head (which was gonna be a thing anyway) to account for the lack of details. lol I'm just so glad this chapter is done.
> 
> Side note, did anyone else have a flashback to "The Last Crash of the Sunchaser!" when Della offered Scrooge the controls? Yeah. Scrooge did, too. XD


	7. Secret Counsel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the date of Huey's assessment fast approaching, he looks to Fethry and Violet for advice and reassurance. Meanwhile, Dewey, Louie, and Webby also want their questions answered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long delay. But! This is a longer-than-usual chapter! 
> 
> It's interesting to hear (from the synopses of some upcoming episodes) that it's likely the whole family is going to realize F.O.W.L.'s after them at the same time. Should be interesting! But in this story, Huey remains the sole conspiracy theorist for now.

“And then I just panicked… Uncle Scrooge was counting on me. Everyone was watching me. And I let them all down. If they hadn’t figured out the riddle… I’d have gotten us all crushed to death.” 

Huey sat holding his phone at arm’s length for a video call, curled up at the foot of a twin-sized bed with red covers, directly across from another twin-sized bed with green bedding in a usually vacant room of the mansion. 

“That must’ve been scary,” Fethry said. “I’m glad you’re all okay. You know? I’ve tripped a few traps on adventures, too… and nearly blown everyone up a couple times. But we always made it through okay.”

“But this time it was my fault,” Huey said. 

“Hm… well, now that I think about it… I remember how your mom used to try to cheer me up after an adventure, telling me about all the times she or your uncle Donald made mistakes or tripped traps, but… I also remember that didn’t make me feel better.”

“Yeah… Uncle Scrooge already pointed out to me how my brothers are usually the ones who set off traps, and I was overdue for it.”

“It probably feels worse _because_ it doesn’t happen much, huh?” he guessed. “You’re not used to it.”

“And I don’t wanna get used to it.” Huey leaned against the wall behind him. “But what if this is my new normal? The whole time I was on that adventure, I kept thinking about all the traits of Autism I have, and I felt super overwhelmed by the littlest things, like how the dirty stone floor felt against the bottom of my feet, or how everyone’s voices sounded echoing off the walls… it didn’t used to be like that for me on adventures! What if I’m just talking myself into all this? What if I’m not autistic and I just think I am?”

“That’s why you’re getting assessed by a professional,” Fethry reminded him.

“Yeah… it’s just… what if she isn’t able to make an accurate assessment? I feel like the way I am now is nothing like the way I was two weeks ago… like either this whole thing is just my imagination, or I really am autistic, but I’m acting _more_ autistic in a way that’s not honest, even though I’m not doing it on purpose.”

Fethry’s eyes went wide. “OOH the same thing happened to me!”

“…Really?”

“Yeah! I felt – or maybe even acted? – way more autistic after I found out. I wonder if that’s common?”

“Maybe…” Huey sat up on his knees, now more curious about his cousin’s experience. “How’d you act more autistic?” 

“Well, I remember feeling more withdrawn for a while, even though I still wanted to process things with your mom. And I started noticing more sensory stuff, too. Also, I think I started doing raptor hands more then. Or, more accurately, I didn’t stop myself whenever I caught myself doing raptor hands.”

“Raptor hands?”

“Yeah, you know,” Fethry tilted his phone down to show his left arm, which he bent at the elbow as his wrist hung limp. “It’s when you hold your arm like this, kind of like a raptor or t-rex.” He brought his phone back up to his face. “Some theorize it’s comforting because it mimics the position people’s arms are folded before they’re born.”

Huey bent his elbow and draped his wrist in a similar fashion, also angling his phone so Fethry could see, but after a few moments, he relaxed his arm. “I don’t really feel a difference,” he admitted. In fact, he felt a little silly, but he wasn’t going to say so.

“That’s okay. Different things help different people. Everyone has to find their own things that make them more comfortable.”

Huey sat back and brought his knees up to his chest, searching his brain for anything he’d read on the internet about self-soothing behavior autistic people exhibit. He’d been following Fethry’s advice – as difficult as it was – and stopped doing searches on Autism. That being the case, he’d found his pool of information had shrunk considerably to just the two autistic people he knew.

“I wonder what sort of things help Violet feel more comfortable?” he said.

“You could always ask her,” Fethry said.

But Huey wondered if he really could. Everything he’d read about social delays was making him question every interaction he had with his peers. “It wouldn’t be prying or anything?”

“I don’t think so… she’s already been honest with you about being autistic, so some follow-up questions couldn’t hurt.”

“Would I have to tell her I think I am?” He thought back to when he found out Dewey had been researching their mother on his own… and then on top of that, finding out Webby was in on it. How would his brothers and Webby feel if they found out Violet knew before them?

“It’s up to you who you tell,” Fethry said. “In general… I think it’s only fair to be honest with people who’ve been honest with you.”

“I know, it’s just… I don’t want my brothers to be offended if they find out Violet knew before them. And I’m not ready to tell them yet.”

“Ohhhh, I gotcha. Hm… well, you could always frame it like you want to understand her better, to be a better friend… because that wouldn’t be a lie. That’s why you looked up the entry about Autism in the JWG in the first place, right?”

“Oh… yeah, you’re right.” He’d almost forgotten how much he’d shared with Fethry when his mom and uncle were talking with Scrooge about getting him assessed. At some point during that visit, he’d just started rambling – verbally processing everything – he must have told Fethry a lot more than he thought.

“That way, you can find out more about how she copes, without risking offending anyone,” Fethry brought him back to the present moment.

“That’s… that’s a really good idea,” Huey said. “Thanks, Cousin Fethry.”

“No problem. I don’t want to get you in any trouble with your brothers or friends,” Fethry looked to his left and must have been checking a clock, because he said “Ooh, or your parents! It’s almost 8:45. Nine’s your bedtime, right?” 

“Yeah… I guess I should probably go.”

“G’night! Hang in there, okay?”

“I will. Thanks again,” he waved. 

Once they’d said goodnight and hung up, Huey slipped off the bed and out of the spare bedroom in which he’d hidden to make the call. He didn’t want to be interrupted, especially by his brothers, so using the room that had been set aside for Gladstone and Fethry when they used to spend the night in their youth seemed appropriate.

Considering how few interactions he’d had with Fethry – and especially when looking back at their first meeting – it seemed strange to Huey that this cousin was now such a source of comfort. Guilt and embarrassment gnawed at him whenever he ruminated about their undersea adventure. For one thing, Dewey had spent so much of their trip down to the lab comparing them in a negative light, it made Huey feel embarrassed of his tendencies. For another, he hadn’t been particularly kind to Fethry, either. As much as it hurts his feelings when his brothers or peers criticize him for sharing his interests, he did the same thing to Fethry when he realized all Fethry wanted to show them were some bioluminescent krill. He internally beat himself up over it more than once, especially in the last few days.

But Fethry didn’t hold it against him. He showed a level of patience Huey could barely comprehend.

_“I promise I won’t be offended, whatever you say, because I’ve been through this.”_

Even though Fethry was autistic, and Huey was afraid to be autistic, that didn’t bother Fethry in the slightest, because he’d been through those same feelings. And if Fethry was comfortable with his own Autism, maybe, if Huey got diagnosed, too, he’d eventually accept it like his cousin did. And that gave him a little hope. 

_I wonder how Violet feels about her own Autism?_ Huey thought as he made his way up the spiral staircase to his shared bedroom. Violet had mentioned being bullied for her autistic tendencies, but she wasn’t being bullied these days. That being the case, had she also learned to accept it? He so badly wished he could tell her why he wanted to know, but he just couldn’t… not before telling…

He lifted his eyes when he reached the doorway of his room, and there were Dewey, Louie, and Webby, all standing together facing him in their pajamas. Dewey also wore what resembled a fedora that had been punched inside-out. 

One of them had pulled out the desk chair and parked it in front of them. 

“…What’s going on?”

“Have a seat, Huey,” Louie said with a strangely serious tone as Webby pushed the desk chair towards him a little so he’d take the hint.

“…Why…?”

But before they could answer, Webby put her hands on his shoulders and gently guided him into the chair. 

“We need to talk,” Louie said.

“Just know that we all love you, and we only want you to be happy.” Webby stepped around the chair and rejoined the other two.

“Why does this feel like an intervention?”

“Because it is,” Louie said. There was something eerily uncharacteristic about Louie’s current brand of seriousness. He wasn’t talking the way he would if he were up to something. Grant it, Huey couldn’t necessarily pick out what sounded different. But it sounded different. And Louie also _looked_ different from scheming Louie, but how, Huey still couldn’t say. Maybe it was the absence of a smirk on his face. “We know what you’ve been up to, and why you’ve been so out of it.”

Huey’s heart began to beat a little faster as he pinched and scratched the sides of his seat. He looked over to the desk where his tablet lay charging. It didn’t look like any of them had moved it, but… maybe they’d just made sure to put it back exactly where it had been. Maybe they’d found his list. Maybe they already knew everything. He swallowed hard. So much for debating telling Violet or not. He’d been found out. He just knew it.

“Hubert Duck,” Dewey began, flicking the brim of his inside-out fedora up so he could better see his older brother. It reminded Huey of the time Dewey and Webby had both interrogated him about the post card he’d sent Donald getting returned. “You are charged with the crime of depriving us of technology after 9:00 pm.”

That was the last thing he expected to hear. “What?”

“Don’t play dumb with us,” Dewey said. 

“Uncle Donald and Mom made the rule, not me.”

“But they only made the rule after the night I woke up at half-past midnight and noticed you were still up and using your tablet,” Louie reminded him. “Now, I wasn’t going to squeal on you. I _didn’t_ squeal on you. But when we woke up the next morning, you weren’t there. We thought you’d gotten up early, but at breakfast, Mom showed up to tell Mrs. Beakley you were sleeping in _in her bed_ because you’d had trouble sleeping the night before. You squealed on yourself, and we all got busted for it.”

By now Dewey had turned his back, and based on the motion of his bent elbow, it seemed he was stroking his chin. “Webbigail, would you please inform Hubert of his second crime?”

“You made a conspiracy board without me?!” Webby shrilled with wide, shining eyes. “I have so much red yarn! Why wouldn’t you let me help you?”

So that was it… but… was it all of it? Did they only think his anxiety was due to his conspiracy theorizing? Did they think he was up late that night looking up things pertaining to his investigation? He nearly sighed in relief until he realized this possibility had far larger implications. He couldn’t drag them into this. His whole family was in danger – he just knew it – and he wasn’t about to paint giant targets on their backs by clueing them in. 

“What were you doing looking at my board?” he asked, his voice a bit higher and louder than he meant it to be.

“That board’s messing you up, man!” Louie said. “Look, whatever conspiracy you’re trying to bust, you can’t keep going like this. Let us in on it!”

“No!”

“Seriously? When I was researching Mom without you and Louie, you got all mad at me. Now you’re trying to solve some big mystery on your own and totally keeping us out of the loop?”

So Huey wasn’t the only one thinking about that incident. Only while he’d been worrying about his brothers finding out he was keeping his possible Autism a secret, Dewey was calling him out for not being honest with his conspiracy theories. But it didn’t matter. The event was clearly still fresh in both their minds, and Dewey would definitely use it as a comparison again if he ever found out about Huey suspecting he’s autistic.

_Not that he’d be wrong to,_ Huey thought. He knew he was being hypocritical. He knew he was guilty of the very thing that had made him so upset and feel betrayed before. It made him wonder if it was really worth it to keep them in the dark about Autism.

“Staying silent isn’t going to save you, Huey,” Louie interrupted his thoughts.

“Save me? From what?” Huey pinched his brows together at the slight threat – or rather, what he perceived as a threat.

“From yourself,” Webby answered. “We’re worried about you. You’ve been so stressed lately. And if there’s some kind of big conspiracy going on, you won’t be able to bust it if you wear yourself out trying to handle it all alone.

“Yeah, look what happens literally every time someone in this family tries to do something alone,” Louie said. “They either get stuck on the Moon for a decade, or nearly hurl themselves off the wing of a plane over a scrap of paper…”

Dewey grimaced and rubbed his arm. 

“…or rip the fabric of space and time to shreds,” Louie concluded solemnly. 

Huey dropped his gaze to the wavy lines on the wooden planks of the floor. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No, we know exactly what we’re talking about! We just don’t know what you’re thinking about!”

“And you’re not going to!” Huey stood up and pushed his way between Dewey and Louie to get to their dresser. “Look, I need to get ready for bed before Uncle Donald or Mom come up to say goodnight and I get in trouble,” he said, retrieving his pajamas from a drawer. “Just stay away from that board!” 

“Huey, wait!” Webby called after him as he left. 

He didn’t wait. But he did stop when he nearly bumped into his uncle at the top of the steps.

“You’re not ready yet?” Donald asked him in surprise. Normally he was the first one ready for bed.

“That’s on us. We held him up,” Louie said from the doorway. 

Huey felt a pang of guilt. Even now, Louie and the others were just looking out for him. And all he did was keep secrets from them and snap at them when confronted. 

Donald stepped out of the way so Huey could pass him and patted his head. “See you in a few minutes,” he said. “Webby? What are you doing up here? Your granny is looking for you.”

Huey picked up the pace to avoid walking down with Webby, but she caught up to him anyway. When they were a little ways down the spiral staircase, she whispered, “You know it’s just that we’re worried about you, right? You’ve been so anxious lately. It’s not good for you.”

He sighed as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “Look, I appreciate you’re trying to help, but it’s better if you all just forget about it, okay?”

“Webbigail?” Mrs. Beakley’s voice sounded from down the hall. “There you are. Are you ready for bed?”

“Yes, Granny,” she replied. She turned and gave Huey a pleading look, but he was resolute. It was best she and the others stay innocent to the plot against their family, whatever it was. 

Still, he didn’t want to seem ungrateful for her concern. Returning her sad gaze with a sad smile, he said, “G’night, Webby… and thanks.” 

Webby smiled back, just as sadly. “Good night.”  
\-------------------------------------------  
As Huey counted down the days to his assessment, he grew more and more anxious. He wondered if he really had everything he needed to present his case to the doctor. Despite going over everything with Fethry, and Fethry assuring him he had what he needed and would be fine, Huey couldn’t shake the feeling he was missing something. 

_Violet’s coming over Friday… maybe I should talk to her about it… especially since I’m being assessed by the same doctor she had._

Of course, every time Huey thought of that, he would again wonder if it was right to tell Violet before his brothers. Dewey had already called him out on his hypocrisy in keeping his investigation from them. Why add to that? He’d considered telling them about his Autism speculations since then, but… all he imagined was them trying to “help,” by assuring him he wasn’t autistic. And at first he wasn’t sure why, but it hurt imagining that sort of scenario. It didn’t take too long for him to figure out a few reasons.

It’s not that he necessarily wanted to be autistic now. That wasn’t it… part of it was he just didn’t want them calling him a hypochondriac. Another part of it was he wasn’t ready to face more reactions like the one his uncle initially had. But more than anything, he knew hearing them respond with statements like, “You don’t have this, there’s nothing wrong with you,” would reinforce the idea in his head that it’s a bad thing. And it’d be harder to process a diagnosis if he stayed in that mindset. And he’d be more afraid to tell his brothers he’d been officially diagnosed if they’d already expressed their opinion that Autism is something wrong with a person. And he’d been trying so hard to overcome these feelings as it is, talking to Fethry to get a more positive outlook on it all. 

And it was for all these reasons he knew he couldn’t tell his brothers or Webby yet… and why he wanted to talk to Violet about it more than ever. Before he knew it, he was drafting his defense in his head for when his brothers would find out Violet knew before them.

_They know Violet’s autistic. Of course I’d go to her for more information. They’d have to understand that, right? Besides, Dewey shouldn’t have kept his investigation about Mom a secret, because she’s the mother of all three of us. If I’m autistic, I’m the only one who is. This isn’t about all three of us. It’s just about me… right?_

That internet article describing Autism as devastating to families and society flashed across his mind once more, but he pushed it aside the best he could and tried to remember everything the adults in his life had been telling him. They love him the way he is. They don’t want him to be any different.

With a deep breath, he decided if he got a chance to talk to Violet alone about it when she and Lena came over Friday night, he would. 

_But what are the chances I’ll get to talk to her alone?_

The six of them would usually hang out together, and they had plans to watch the movie _Blizzard_ since Lena had never seen it and Webby insisted she was just like the snow queen – a comparison Huey had to admit was accurate. But he couldn’t think of any way to contrive a meeting with Violet without awkwardly asking in front of everyone, “Hey, Violet? Could I talk to you alone for a second?” He felt embarrassed just thinking about it.

But as he descended the steps of the grand staircase Friday evening into the foyer to go wait in the TV room, he looked up and there was Violet, descending the steps on the other side. He froze in place and his hand tightened on the banister. 

“Oh! …Hi, Violet.”

“Hello, Hubert,” she greeted, still descending the steps until she reached the landing. She tilted her head slightly and stared up at him for a moment. “Are you alright? You appear to be startled.”

Huey’s heart began to thump just a little harder. 

_That’s not fair… she’s not supposed to be that perceptive of nonverbal cues,_ he thought.

“Oh, um… I – I just – I didn’t expect to see you.”

“You forgot Lena and I were coming over tonight?”

“No, just… I didn’t expect to see you on the stairs just now.”

“I was just utilizing the facilities before the film starts.”

“Oh. Good thinking.”

“Indeed. Shall we join the others?”

Huey realized it was now or never. His brothers were still upstairs. Webby and Lena were in the TV room. 

“Actually…” he wrung his hands. “…could I talk to you about something?”

“What is it?”

“Well…”

At that moment he heard his brothers coming. He couldn’t let them catch him talking to Violet about Autism. Even if they just thought he was talking to her about it because she’s autistic, they’d still interrupt… possibly join the conversation… and eventually say “Come on, let’s go start the movie!” and he will have lost his chance.

“This way!” he ran down the steps and beckoned Violet to follow, ducking behind the green curtains of the alcove farther away from the TV room. To his relief, Violet did follow him. He undid just one of the tiebacks to better hide and waited until he heard what sounded like Dewey enthusiastically saying, “Whaddup, Lena?” before peaking around the curtain and seeing the foyer was indeed empty. Nevertheless, he didn’t leave the alcove. He didn’t want to be seen or heard. 

“Why are you hiding from your brothers?” Violet asked in a hushed voice behind him.

Huey sighed. “Sorry, it’s just… I wanted to talk to you about… what you shared last time.”

“The cookies I brought? Have you developed a food allergy recently? If that is the case you may be suffering from Increased Intestinal Permeability –”

Huey shook his head. “No, not the cookies… those were great.” He checked around the curtain once more to ensure the foyer was still empty. “What I mean is… what you shared about being autistic.”

Violet’s eyes widened a bit. “Oh? Yes? Proceed.”

“Uh…” he suddenly realized he’d spent so much time questioning whether or not he should talk to her about it before his brothers, and then how he’d manage to talk to her alone, he’d forgotten all about what questions to ask her. He stalled with some more uhs and ums as he nervously wrung his hands again before finally spitting out the first question that came to his mind. “When did you find out you’re autistic?”

“Nearly two years ago… one year and ten months to be a bit more precise.” 

“Ah… so… not when you were younger?”

“I… was a year and ten months younger…”

“I mean, a lot younger. Like, four or five.”

“No. I was nine.”

Huey nodded to buy himself some time and to show that he was listening, but he realized he should probably ask another question. He tried to remember some of the things he’d wondered about that he wanted to ask her, but the next thing that came to mind was, “Do… you have any coping mechanisms for anxiety?” He scolded himself internally for how completely random and unrelated these questions were. 

“I do, in fact. I’ve recently discovered tapping – and by discovered, I mean I’ve come across what others have already discovered.”

“Tapping? Like, stimming by drumming on things? Or tap dancing?”

“No. Tapping is a self-soothing method that utilizes the body’s acupoints. I’ve found it to be quite effective. And at home, I find things like my weighted blanket, wind chimes, salt crystal lamp, and throw pillow with reversible sequins to be rather calming.”

“Oh,” was all Huey could think to say. 

“Do you mind if I ask you a question?” 

“Oh, um… no. Go ahead.”

Violet held her knuckle to her beak and raised one brow with intrigue. “Why did you want to talk to me about Autism privately when the others already know I’m on the spectrum?” 

“Uh…” Huey thought he’d made up his mind to tell her. But suddenly he was faced with the opportunity to change his mind. He thought back to what Fethry suggested – telling her he wanted to know more about Autism so he could be a better friend to her, because while that wasn’t the whole reason, it wouldn’t be a lie. But then how would he explain wanting to talk to her about it privately? “I… uh… I didn’t want to put you on the spot in front of everyone.” He could’ve kicked himself when he realized he lied anyway. But he decided to get back on track with the truth. “I wanted to learn more about Autism so I could understand the things you go through… to be considerate and… be the kind of friend you need.”

It sounded like a nice enough answer to him, but Violet looked a little… sad? She’d dropped her gaze to the floor. “Oh… I see. I thought perhaps there was another reason.”

And in that moment he realized she’d guessed. Of course she’d guessed. She’s Violet Sabrewing. It was foolish of him to think he could keep something like this from someone like her.

He peered around the curtain one more time before turning back to Violet, and took a deep breath. “I think I might be autistic. I’m sorry I didn’t say that at first. It’s just that my brothers don’t know yet and I don’t know how they’ll react but after you told us I started looking up things about Autism for the same reason I told you – to be a better friend – only Dewey said it sounded like me and he only meant it as a joke but he was right and I started doing all this research but they don’t know I’ve been looking all this stuff up and then my mom and uncle’s cousin Fethry who apparently is also autistic told me not to look up stuff on the internet because so much of what’s out there is wrong and hurtful so I’ve been relying on him for information and I’m being assessed by a doctor on Monday only I don’t know if I’m ready or not even though I have a list of symptoms I exhibit and –” he’d been running out of air and felt the need to stop and gasp so he wouldn’t pass out in the middle of rambling. 

“Hubert… Hubert, take slow deep breaths,” Violet coached him through a few inhales and exhales. “There now. Do you feel better?”

“Yeah… I guess so. I’m sorry I wasn’t more honest about it at first.”

“That’s understandable. Father says everybody has _some_ sort of closet to come out of… something they wish the world knew about them but are still hesitant to admit. In fact… I was still quite hesitant to admit to you all that I’m autistic.”

“Really? Then what made you decide to tell us?”

Violet rubbed her arm and diverted her gaze to the baseboard. “I thought if I admitted my autism… you’d admit yours. But… then you didn’t.”

Several thoughts flooded Huey’s mind. 

_Violet thinks I’m autistic. She was and probably is certain that I am. She knew before me. Just like Mom knew before me. How many other people figured this out before me? She looks sad again…did I let her down? Autistic people have a hard time dealing with things not going the way they expected… and telling us she’s autistic was a big deal to her that didn’t go the way she expected… because of me. Did I embarrass her? If she’d known the outcome of telling us beforehand, would she still have told us?_

“I’m sorry… I didn’t know yet,” he said. “I might not have figured it out if it weren’t for you… so… in a way, you admitting it to us did lead to me admitting it to you.”

“But Dewford, Llewellyn, and Webbigail don’t know?”

“No.” Huey sat against the wall and put his arms around his folded legs. “I just… I don’t want to tell them without a professional diagnosis. I kind of have a history of being a hypochondriac.” 

“Ah. I see,” Violet joined him on the floor. “I suppose it’s only natural to want to discuss Autism with someone you already know is autistic. Did you have any other questions?”

Now that Violet knew the real reason he was asking, he didn’t have to overthink which questions he could ask her. So with another deep breath, he said, “Ever since I found out I might have this, all the internet articles I’ve been reading have been making me feel like less of a person. Did you ever feel like that? How do you feel about being autistic now?”

“How do I _feel_ about it?”

“Yeah.”

She tilted her head with her brows pinched. She seemed to be deep in thought. “Hm,” was all she said at first. The question caught her off guard. Huey hadn’t realized answering a question about feelings involved so much thinking.

_“I find it’s clearer to convey no emotion whatsoever.”_

He remembered her saying that once. He’d wondered why that was her creed in life. It’s not as though she didn’t have feelings. When they competed to be named Senior Woodchucks, Violet showed concern, empathy, fear, enthusiasm… she wasn’t as emotionless as people might think when they first meet her. But maybe sharing her feelings when asked was something that didn’t come naturally to her.

“I… suppose I feel alright about it,” she said at last. “But I also understand there are those who don’t feel the same, and that is why I don’t tell everyone I meet. I have found one of my biggest struggles with Autism is how people treat me because of it… not the Autism itself.”

Huey wasn’t sure what to say in response. It was a relief to hear someone talk about Autism like it’s not a challenge in and of itself, but he’d also been bullied for tendencies he now knew were traits of Autism. Even if he were diagnosed with Autism and learned to accept it, he’d still have to face the fact others wouldn’t. 

It also saddened him to know Violet had been bullied so much, she didn’t think she could be open and honest about her Autism. She was one of the smartest, kindest, bravest people he knew.

“My apologies if that’s not a satisfactory answer,” Violet said when Huey didn’t reply. “I’m not particularly skilled in answering questions about how I feel… only what I think.”

“Huh? Oh… no, it was a good answer!” Huey tried to assure her. “It’s just… I’m sorry people haven’t treated you the way they should. And I’m sorry if I pried, asking about your feelings. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“WHADDAREYADOING???” Lena threw open the curtain and the light from the foyer fell on the two Woodchucks who screamed with surprise. 

Huey had whirled around so quickly his head spun. His heart beat so hard and fast he felt a sharp pain in his chest for a split second, and when it was over, his pulse pounded in his ears and his leg muscles cramped. 

“Tryin’ to put the moves on my little sister? I thought you were the good one,” she crossed her arms with a smug grin.

_Oh dear sweet anything and everything is that what she thinks?!?!_ Huey’s face flushed. He didn’t watch a ton of TV, but he’d watched just enough to know “putting the moves on,” someone meant flirting, possibly even making the cliché yawn, stretch, wrap-your-arm-around-her-shoulders move. He certainly didn’t bring Violet into the alcove to do anything as inappropriate as that! 

“‘Moves?’ Like dance moves?” Webby said from behind Lena.

“Sure, Webs.”

“I WASN’T – WE WEREN’T – NO!” he sputtered shrilly. 

“We were having a purely academic discussion!” 

“EMPHASIS ON _PURELY!”_

“Yeah. Uh-huh. Alone in the dark?”

Huey could tell by Lena’s grin she was only teasing, but if he didn’t fervently deny her allegations of such ungentlemanly behavior, what would she and Webby start to think? What would they tell his brothers?

“We weren’t doing anything!” he said as Lena stepped forward to give Violet a hand up and led her out to the foyer.

“He did leave one of the curtains open so we weren’t in complete darkness and blocked from view,” Violet pointed out before glancing at Huey as they passed him. “Besides, perhaps it’s best you don’t tease him.”

“Aw c’mon, why not?” Lena said playfully.

“Because his bill is the same shade of red as his polo shirt now and his eyes are watering.”

Huey noticed Violet’s beak had a slightly rosy tinge to it as well, but he knew it was nothing compared to how red his yellow bill could get. He also knew Violet was only trying to help, but he wished she hadn’t pointed out his eyes were watering. It only made them water more.

“Okay, okay, I get it, your intentions were pure as the driven snow,” Lena said. “Don’t sweat it, Red. I was just messin’ with ya.”

He could tell Lena did actually feel kind of bad for making him blush and almost cry, but for some reason her remorse also made it worse. He had to press the heels of his palms to his eyes, and he couldn’t help but notice how much his tears dampened his feathers. He groaned in frustration as he stood up. _How did this many tears accumulate in my eyes without spilling over?_

He jumped when someone placed their hand on his shoulder. After wiping his eyes, he saw it was Webby. He figured as much. Next thing he knew she had wrapped him in a hug, which he half-heartedly returned. 

“Come on, let’s go watch the movie,” she said.

“Someone text Red’s clones and tell ‘em we found him.”

_Great, so it was a whole search party situation,_ he realized.

It was difficult for Huey to enjoy the movie as he wondered if talking to Violet alone – especially in a dark-ish alcove – was a huge inappropriate social faux pas in and of itself. He supposed it was one more instance that backed his speculations. But with Violet’s assessment of her situation as an autistic person, Huey still wasn’t sure whether he wanted to be right or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, of course they're watching Frozen.
> 
> GAHHH I really wanted to end the chapter with him going to his appointment! But the other scenes I planned just took up too much space. Next time, for sure!


End file.
